Deal or No Deal
by Writearound
Summary: A Cross road demon can get bored, the requests over the centuries are all mundane and begin to blur into each other. One such demon who has managed to keep a low profile through various regime changes in hell is suddenly faced with the prospect of not being quite so low profile if she accepts the deal an off the wall, slightly chubby teenage girl offers her.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Crossroad demons get bored hanging around waiting for someone to turn up with a dream or a nightmare. Doing the crossword, only goes so far to alleviating the boredom. I found downloading every episode of Downton Abbey passed the time and was worth the effort as it helped me perfect my English accent. No one tells you that inhabiting a meat suit from New Jersey would result in an accent that after only a few days drove me slightly crazy.

Every time I opened my mouth I sounded like a high pitched motor-mouth woman who would have got thrown off the set of The Sopranos for being over the top. The original inhabitant in here, occasionally tries to poke me when I do something she obviously finds difficult; missing a bikini wax, wearing flat shoes, eating too many carbs. All those memories she has of nail salons and long lunches with other wives whose husbands make money in dubious ways are frankly tedious. Let's face it, she was pretty empty before I turned up, occupying a vacant property is a bit of a specialty of mine, perfected over centuries.

Strong personalities tend to have sharp corners and can make the stay quite taxing if I'm honest. Not that people believe demons can be honest and crossroad demons come in for heavy vilification on the truth front. Actually I've always found the truth when making a deal is far more compelling. I make it quite clear that everything comes at a price and your soul is a pretty high priced commodity. When they ask for what they want, or rather what they think they want I always point out the price, I don't hide it away in the small print or a foot note on the twelfth page.

Some give it away lightly, their eyes fixed on that glittering prize they want, job, money, success, film contract, record deal. Others are clearly torn, the ones bargaining for ten more years of life when faced with a terminal illness, just long enough to see their kids grow up, seem to reflect more on the bargain. Those that bargain for a loved one's life in exchange for their soul are in my experience the real catches because when that soul is taken it's a top quality one, they seem less grubby somehow.

Crowley once agreed with me after a long drinking session in a bar but as he pointed out a soul, is a soul, is a soul. Not particularly profound but then I wasn't about to point out how prosaic the statement was. You don't get to be around for as long as I have without knowing how to ensure the King of Hell sees you in a favorable light. The Downton accent was my small attempt to perhaps offer him some home comforts, if you get my drift. It pissed me off no end when his mother turned up with that broad Scots accent of hers , I figured then perhaps watching Brigadoon would have helped more but evidently Crowley himself had done a little accent ironing somewhere along the line.

I find Crowley quite personable as a master, there have been worse and I have seen a few come and go. My age does earn me some respect from many demons as I have been round the block, as they say, a few eons. I am a quick learner, each body I occupy has been my tutor in the way humans think and act. They never cease to be a wonder to me, although I would never say that out loud, it might be misinterpreted in certain circles.

I have learned that too high a profile in hell can lead to nasty consequences involving torments that could turn your stomach and I have decapitated, gouged, strangled and knifed with the best of them. Never gratuitously though, I've seen what happens to the ones who go out of their way to inflict as much pain as possible, they go a little crazy and a crazy demon is a vulnerable one. I can recall when Dean Winchester was here in hell, how he learned to inflict pain and torture and something behind the eyes died. He wasn't even demon occupied and he began to smell like us.

Things have a tendency to repeat themselves because I hear Dean is struggling with the whole inflicting pain thing again, although the finesse of torture can't be compared with the slashing and hacking he is indulging in at present. The Mark of Cain is a powerful thing that no one messes with, its early magic, magic from before and that is off limits as far as I am concerned. I intend to keep myself well away from any hunters, especially the Winchesters because if Dean is going ape-shit you can bet his brother is not far behind trying to shovel that shit up and any unsuspecting demon who gets in his way.

'Steer clear of shit' has always been my motto, or rather it was until I turned up at what looked like a run of the mill crossroad deal to find a rather chubby teenage girl dusting off her hands from burying a small tobacco tin in the ground. I should have walked away, I should have persuaded her that what she wanted was such a bad idea it would win first prize in the 'worst deal ever struck at a crossroads this side of hell' competition. However (don't you just love an 'however' it's so Downton) it takes two to make a deal and I should have just walked away.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

I could feel Shiree cowering away in a small corner of my mind, or rather her own mind, psychiatrists and philosophers may still be out on the exact standing of brain versus mind in these circumstances. I sensed she felt the girl's hair and dress sense might be contagious if she got too close.

"That was quick, I'm impressed," the girl said looking me straight in the eyes. I let the red take over as that usually evoked a bit of trembling and feet shuffling at the very least. I always found it best to keep the client a little off center. With this girl; nothing, nada, nichts, 无, she just kept looking. I decided the stack-heeled biker boots covered in what looked like hand painted drawings of flames and flowers gave her the advantage. It wasn't the first time I'd had cause to regret choosing a vertically challenged meat suit.

"Let's start by introducing ourselves shall we, then we'll get down to the details, these contracts aren't just a quick handshake you know, they require careful drafting." I decided formality was the best way to carry out this particular transaction. Teenagers hated the formalities, the paperwork stuff. There isn't exactly an age at which you are eligible for a crossroads deal but teenagers usually quit before all the paperwork is done, Crowley calls it natural selection or the focus factor.

"Fine, I'll start shall I," I began when she just continued to stare, I was beginning to wonder if she was quite grasping the momentous nature of the situation. Red-eyed demons don't walk into your life very often. "My name for the purposes of this transaction is Yadidatum, it's Mesopotamian if you are interested but probably not I'm guessing."

"So you are like, really old, those contracts must have been a bummer to write in cuneiform," she seemed to be laughing at her own joke, although I did recall the fucking hours spent on those stone tablets took the joy out of any deal I did back then.

I was surprised she even knew about cuneiform, to be honest I would have been surprised if she knew who the current President was…I was a little cynical about the distribution of intelligence out in this isolated neck of the woods. I have covered a lot of crossroads and which ones we get are now centrally managed. In the old times you could have had over ten demons turning up at the same crossroads which got messy, sometimes the human actually slunk off whilst the demons fought among themselves about whose contract he or she was going to be.

I have to say that Crowley systematizing the whole thing was little short of genius. He ranked crossroads by usage and assigned newly created demons to the less well used ones. You had to work yourself up to being a crossroad demon in the great US of A, the plum geographical location. Some demons waited for centuries in places like Iceland or Mongolia. This particular crossroads was a sort of add on to my usual rosta, I get most of my work in California, there's a lot of wanting there and the southern states because superstition and vengeance is their USP. Here in Montello, Wisconsin there wasn't a great call for my services. The last deal I struck here was with some farmer in the 1800s who needed his crops to survive a drought. I gave him ten good years of abundance and when the time came the stupid man tried to shoot a hell hound, just accepting his lot would have been so much easier, those hounds are nasty, their breath smells putrid and they get their bloody paw prints all over the soft furnishings.

"Hello, earth calling demon, shouldn't you be concentrating on me," yelled the girl at almost point blank range. Typical teenager they always have to think it's about them but to be fair in this case it was.

"So, name please," I said getting out my notebook. Lately, well in the past century, I have decided to write things down, not that I forget details or anything, but when you've done as many deals as I've done things get a little blurry sometimes.

"Mercy Montello," she looked like she was about to spell it for me but I was irritated now.

"Not place, girl, name!" I barked.

"Place and name the same, a triumph of imagination by the county fostering authorities. Found on the steps of the Mercy Hospital in Milwaukee and the first foster parents I had as a baby lived here. Went on a few travels round other families for the next few years and now I'm back with them, so name and place unfortunately the same, it's a nightmare at high school. So glad they didn't live in Oshkosh though."

"So Mercy Montello it is, any middle names, I like to be precise, saves a lot of squirming later if you try and get out of the contract." I clicked my biro just to give her a sense of my irritation, I could see she was going to be a difficult one. I was going to save the 'Don't fuck with me young lady' remark for the moment she really did annoy me, the power chuck as I call it, throwing them a few yards in the air, I save for the ones who need a wakeup call, she may need that as well I thought at some point.

"No they ran out of steam at one. So when do I tell you what I want?" She said that in a way that had me intrigued, she was quite calm, almost matter of fact.

Girls of her age were usually crying and dripping snot, moaning about being chucked by some boy who they wanted back. That was always a popular one even before the Egyptians figured out pyramid building. They got ten years with a boy who turned into a man that farted and belched and cheated on her with other women but always came back to her, she couldn't even leave him because the deal stipulated being with this particular man. Sometimes they came back to the crossroads and asked for the deal to be changed, the desperate ones sometimes asked to be taken early as they couldn't stand another day with the man, who they had sold their soul for. But a deal is written in blood and magic, the undoing is way beyond my pay grade. This girl didn't appear to be a snot and tears merchant.

"So let's hear it then, is it beauty?" I looked her up and down channeling my inner Shiree. "Popularity is a good one, high school I gather is only tolerable if people like you." She scowled at me.

"I don't fucking care what those losers think about me, the ones who think themselves God's gift now will be living off their high school popularity all their sad little lives. No I don't want money, talent, brains that sort of lame stuff that's up to me," she was striding up and down as if delivering a speech she had practiced for months.

"How wise, could it be a touch of vengeance then, foster parent who abused you, psychiatrist that said you were nuts, I am always up for a bit of retribution?" She looked the angry sort, perhaps she was the murder and mayhem kind, it was always the quiet ones you had to look out for.

"Look it's probably something pretty easy for you and if I could do it myself I would but I can't so you're my last resort when the internet can't deliver."

I was more than a little put off by the fact that I should be in competition with the internet, particularly as a lot of millionaires had made their money out of some crossroad demon.

"So?" I leaned my back against a mail box trying to appear nonchalant.

"I want you to find my biological parents and I want to meet them if they are still alive or maybe if they aren't." Mercy cocked her head on one side as if contemplating the possibility of a post death reunion with her DNA donors could be on offer.

"There are people who do that kind of thing, I'm not a fucking social worker. Anyway they are likely to be a huge disappointment; crack heads, prostitute, rapist, massive general wanker …the list is endless. If you want my advice, get over yourself, thousands of people have grown up without their blood relatives. You've probably got the best deal going already with these current foster parents of yours. Just go away and grow up, parents are vastly overrated commodities, not worth your soul I assure you." I was surprised that I could hear myself offering advice, perhaps Shiree was coming out the corner again , although as a career air-head she was hardly the advice giving kind.

"Are you allowed to refuse me, is that in the fucking small print? You don't exactly sound as if you have the final say, can I ask to speak with your manager." She wasn't joking, I could tell by the tone in her voice.

"You don't want to meet my manager girl, the King of Hell is hardly likely to want to meet a …a…..a " I was struggling to find an appropriate insult, " an inconsequential pipsqueak like you."

"Who for fuck sake uses the word pipsqueak unless they've been watching too much Downton Abbey?" She was laughing, the little bitch was laughing.

I decided I'd had enough and now was the time for the full on power chuck and I flicked my hand in her direction. I gauged that she might even thump into a nearby tree, break a few ribs, maybe an arm or two if I was lucky

Nothing happened, she looked at me as if I was doing some strange tai chi move apropos of nothing.

I tried again, maybe I was having an off day. Nothing, only her chubby little face and grey eyes staring at me. This was going to be no ordinary deal from the very start.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

This job was beginning to turn a little complicated. I consulted my internal database which I suppose is the modern word for memory. The power chuck, my telekinetic powers had been hard won over a thousand years ago. It was in modern parlance, I suppose, an upgrade as I hadn't started out as a crossroad demon, I was a common or garden black-eye although I suppose I shouldn't mention the word garden it has that whole other iconography for us demons. To be frank being a woman way back wasn't a particularly good deal.

I didn't make a good human woman I disobeyed my father, my brothers, the husband that was forced upon me. I was punished over and over again but I would not yield to what they needed me to be. I suppose you might say I was a proto feminist in my own little way, slitting my husband's throat in his bed whilst he slept may not be regarded as a good role model for the modern woman though. The demon thing was a chance encounter with a Knight of Hell as I moved from village to village. I had a knack with goats, still do but there isn't much call for it now, I could up their yield by singing whilst I milked them. I knew how to cure their ills. I discovered that a woman who increases a man's profit is allowed certain huge privileges, like food and not being raped.

Then came my death, a stupid accident up in the mountains and there was this head honcho demon offering me a deal and I took it, he didn't care if I was male or female he just demanded loyalty and an ability to kill. I was fine with that, still am but it gets to be a chore rather than a delight after a few centuries. The step up to crossroad demon was quite a thrill for a while. A bit of one on one with humanity with time to talk was interesting and I got to change my clothes every now and then when they wore out, got a little wrinkly and baggy. _Shut it Shiree I am not going to your plastic surgeon for a little work yet._

So I digress ( see what I did there, the posh vocabulary is coming along nicely, I am nearly as loquacious as Crowley). This girl should have been weeping in fear and agony and she was still standing there laughing at me. The crack about Downton was that just a coincidence but then there is no such thing as coincidence, I've learned over the centuries, stuff doesn't just happen there is cause and effect. If this girl can resist my powers then something in the universe is amiss.

I edged a little closer just to get a real sniff of her, you can smell things as a demon, we don't broadcast it much as it seems a bit dog like but everything has its own olfactory signature; humans, demons, vampires, monsters, witches, prophets, angels, cherubs, weir wolves, gods, even hunters, they all stink of something and a human soul has a particular aroma. I sniffed, she took a step back.

"What the fuck are you sniffing at, is it some sort of demon fetish thing!" She took a step back and I moved one step forward.

"Just stay still I'm checking you out."

"For what? Body odor, Chanel Number 5, cookies? Please don't tell me you'll want to sniff my shoes. I once had a foster dad who had this thing about smelling my shoes, he was a little on the deviant side but one kick in the crotch got him out of my shoes and my life come to think of it." Mercy was feisty I had to hand it to her. I may be in this small neatly coiffured body with a good spray tan, some Botox and a beauty and fitness regime that would have a Navy Seal on his knees by midday but I knew right now I was scary. I was giving off the full pheromone of demonic that should have triggered her fight and flight mechanisms big time but here she was talking back.

"You have a human soul I can smell it and there's no faking that. There's another couple of smells mixed in there that are distinctly strange, nothing I've ever smelt before." I looked her up and down checking for signs of hex bags, strange tattoos anything that might give me a clue about her.

"Look, I'm not trying to trick you or anything, I just want a deal and you are supposed to give it to me. There was nothing about all this sniffing in the instructions." She seemed genuine enough and we are good at spotting liars, we are the children of lies after all.

"Instructions, where did you find fucking instructions?"

"On the dark net, I made sure I didn't go for all the Wiki crap."

"They have the full instructions on the internet somewhere? Where the hell is all that coming from, doesn't anyone have any respect anymore for oral tradition, ancient spell books of summoning, secrets handed down by old hags in villages? You can just sit at a keyboard in nowhere Wisconsin and get access to all that stuff? There's going to be more and more of you doing it, I'll have teenagers and loners queuing at every crossroad from sea to shining fucking sea to get a deal of some kind at this rate. They'll want to marry a Kardashian, get into Harvard, sing like Taylor Swift, get a bigger penis…this does not augur well."

"If you know what you are doing it's surprisingly easy," This girl was smiling and yanking my chain, she was _some piece of work_ as Shiree interjected. I had to get her rattled it was professional pride, I grabbed her wrist and yanked her towards me.

Suddenly I didn't feel well, I was falling through space and a thousand voices were calling and jabbering around me. I fought to stay upright. I let go of her and vomited on my own Jimmy Choos.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

I sat down on the hood of the clapped out car she had driven to the crossroads. _Yes I fucking know Shiree, it may be a designer dress but I don't actually care if I get grease and general crud on it._

"Feeling better?" Mercy said without too much conviction. I instinctively shied away from the hand she raised to place on my shoulder. She seemed to examine the contents of my stomach on my shoes for a second or two.

"Look I don't suppose we could just get on with it minus all the drama could we, and the strange muttering to yourself, that's just plain mad old bag lady creepy."

I itched to just kill her, throttle the life out of her and Shiree was in full agreement but it was against the rules. The crossroads are a demilitarized zone so to speak. Hunters tend to dismiss that rule, but then they are simply in it for results not for the art of the deal.

"Ok, Ok let's get on with it I'm sure we can come to some agreement without calling the manager, as you so aptly named him.

"Tell me again exactly what you want and be very precise, you do know what the word precise means don't you? " I was sneering it made me feel better.

"I want to meet my biological parents and talk with them, let's say for a whole day, twenty-four whole hours. I want them to tell me the truth about who they are, what they are and how I came to be left on a hospital doorstep. After that meeting they will be completely free to go on with their lives without any comeback from your side or from me. I also want to tag along with you as you go about finding out who they are and where they can be found. If one of them is dead then one will have to do, if they are both dead I want as many facts as the powers that be in hell can muster to answer the questions I have just outlined. In exchange for that I agree to give you my life and my soul ten years from tonight. Should you find out nothing of course the contract is null and void but I reckon to ensure you are really trying hard enough , if you find out nothing your boss, the King of Hell dies, like forever, not just some passing, lets go round again death. Is that precise enough for you?"

She seemed to have thought this through, even I couldn't better her wording and she had put some little points in there that were rather nice. Crowley would be fine with the dying clause I thought then, just how wrong can a demon be, as her request was fairly straightforward, I'd done harder things, like the time with the elephant, the umbrella and the Queen of England. I knew we'd be able to come up with the goods on this one. Yet one thing was flashing danger at me and I knew I would regret asking.

"What do you mean exactly by tag along with me?" I asked, there must have been a hint of distaste in my voice.

"I mean it's written into the contract that I get to stay with you all the time while you do what you have to do to find them. Think of me as a kind of shadowing intern. I want to know exactly what you know. No leaving out little details, no cutting corners, outsourcing the job to some little clerical demon in India. I want the bespoke personal five star service. Also I want to be free to ask questions when necessary of anyone I feel the need to, even your boss. No human is to be harmed during the course of your investigations though, well not harmed permanently. I also think that I ought to add I need to be fit, well and in possession of my own faculties until the night you come to get my soul." I could see her working through various scenarios in her head, she was smart this one, she was being thorough, even Crowley would approve.

This girl was too smart for her own good and I was looking forward to closing the deal ten years from now. Ten years to me was the blink of an eye. I could play her along the way, it could be fun I thought. Why would I have thought that, I was a smug bastard.

"Would you like a rainbow colored unicorn too just for good measure?" I think sarcasm is my best attribute, she seemed to be winding up to either punching me or spitting in my face so I took the initiative before things got out of hand.

"Kiss me," I whispered in her ear "Just shut your pie-hole and kiss me and the deal is done, exactly in the way you've said, no tricks, no little loop holes we will exploit."

I lunged at her just to shut her up and to prevent Shiree's nose from being broken again only this time not by a plastic surgeon, the kiss would lock her in and all I had to do was put up with her for a few hours, or so I thought.

Mercy automatically retreated, you could see the word gross tattooed on her face. _Yes we fucking have to Shiree, I have no idea if she has herpes, I'm pretty sure you have kissed arse-holes before so just back off._

As soon as we kiss the contract in all its intimate detail is written on their bodies, invisible to all except a demon or an angel. We used to let the deal see it too but over the centuries we learned that it drove them crazy, which messed with the deal. If you promise them they'll be the richest merchant in Antioch for ten years it doesn't help if by year two they are trying to hack off their own skin with a rusty fruit knife and weeping uncontrollably, it messes with their business persona. So now it is invisible to them.

I came round to find the girl bending over me and the contract written all over my body, it was glowing and luminous in the dark even under my clothes or rather Shiree's, she luckily was still unconscious or else she would have been screaming and yelling and trying to slap her own face.

"Is that meant to happen? You sort of passing out, I have a feeling you aren't as experienced at all this as you're making out. Anyway get up you old sack of shit, we have work to do and I haven't eaten yet, I'm starved. This soul selling makes you hungry. Damn I knew I should have shoved a little secure cash flow for the next ten years in the contract, still your treat I think. Have I told you that you remind me of those old women on Real Housewives of New Jersey?"

She held out her hand to pull me up, I was so relieved Shiree was not witness to this remark she would have kicked the shit out of her and the contract didn't allow for heavy duty violence not on the client anyway.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

"So how does this work travel wise?" Mercy enquired, looking round for some sort of transport other than her own excuse for a car.

I could see she was hoping for a Ferrari or Porsche, something with horsepower and a classy stick-shift. Why is it that humans always expect demons to have great cars, a splendid horse and carriage, a black stallion with a flowing mane, a chariot with great suspension, a camel of exceptional beauty, an ox cart pulled by not two but four fat oxen? The mode of transport may differ over the centuries but the expectation is always the same.

A summons at a crossroads breaks the laws of physics and bodies in motion, we demons just appear but for the most part I rely on the transport available to my host. I have learned to say meat suit in certain company but in my head I prefer the word host, it seems far more sophisticated and less brusque, I have always striven for a touch of sophistication. Even when I was a foot soldier I used to sign my killing work with a flourish, a bit like those baristas who make those fern like patterns on your cappuccino foam. It's vanity I know but then as a demon the sins are ours to plunder.

I was staring at my body that seemed to be throbbing with the illuminated contract. This was going to be hard to explain to Crowley, there was nothing in the rules that would account for this and he liked to stick to the rules. I reached down and picked up the vellum version that now accompanied the body script. I have never asked how that just appears but Crowley liked what he termed hard copy back-up as well as the invisible demonic body art. I always presumed there was some demon clerk locked away in a room somewhere in hell busily transcribing contracts. I imagined quill pen, a pot of ink, a flickering candle.

"What is it with you, have I got the only fucking demon with some sort of attention deficit disorder, you keep zoning out on me. Get with the programme Yadi." She poked me on the shoulder, this time apart from a slight sense of being on an ocean going yacht in a Force 9 gale I managed not to pass out or throw up. Had the girl just called me Yadi.

"I'm sorry, did I just hear you call me Yadi? Fucking Yadi !" I was almost breathless with the sheer weight of her disrespect.

"My name is Yadidatum, I was born over five thousand years ago, I have slain thousands, I have struck fear into the hearts of angels, I have lain with kings and emperors, I will be here long after you are just a piece of bony grit on the bottom of someone's shoe….."

"O.k…o.k…you've seen things us people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. You've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate and all those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain…."

What the fuck was the girl saying, she must have seen the puzzled look on my face.

"You've seen Blade Runner right?" She seemed puzzled that I didn't get it.

"It's a Sci-Fi film about androids and shit, there's this speech one of the androids makes before he dies…"

I kept staring blankly at her.

"Well whatever, I get it, you've like been around a long time but I can't go around calling you Yadidatum , it's way too long and weird, people will stare."

"You're worried about people staring dressed like that!" I pointed non-specifically at her ripped jeans, the T-shirt which once must have been black but was now a washed out grey with the name of some band on it that was now indecipherable. Then there was the flaming flower boots and the hair that seemed to have been involved in a nasty explosion in a neon colored hair dye factory and that dripped past her shoulders in ambivalent dreadlocks.

"Staring because of a name doesn't even make the top twenty of 'let's all gawp at the weird people' list." _For fuck sake Shiree I know how to insult someone so they crumble into a heap of self-loathing, I_ _am not about to take advice from a New Jersey slut like you._

"I'll make you a deal I get to call you Yadi and you get to tell me what a screw –up I am on the clothes front once a day. The hair dye factory crack is today's quota of insults allowed." The words sounded conciliatory but the tone was full on sarcasm.

"How did you know about the hair dye factory thing?" I was really on an off day, I had missed some things in our little merry chat so far, the Downton Abbey thing, the hair dye factory…this girl was reading my mind, demon's minds are never read.

"You said it just now, " she yelled, "You really are losing it big time."

"No I didn't !" I retaliated. "Yes you fucking did, just now you said my hair was a nasty explosion in a neon colored hair dye factory and my dreads were ambivalent whatever that's meant to mean."

She was looking shifty or was it edgy I couldn't quite read the sulky expression. I continued to stare at her, sometimes the long stare was a better interrogation technique, you got what you wanted without having to resort to ripping out finger nails or flaying someone a little piece at a time. As I said earlier, I'm all for getting results the painless way, it works better. The stare and the silence were working, even little Miss Shit for a Mouth here was looking uncomfortable.

"Sometimes I know stuff without knowing how I know it and it gets mushed up with what people have actually said out loud plus there is stuff I sort of know without anyone being there at all."

I continued to stare and keep quiet, teenagers abhor a vacuum.

"Forty-seven, Crowley, purple, Castiel."

How many times I stabbed a stone mason in Padua in 1493 who tried to rape my host, the name of the King of Hell, the color of my thong, the angel that seems to be more fucked up than a fucked up corner of hell reserved for those who continually fuck up.

I'd thought the questions and not only had she answered them she had given the correct answers that she could not have possibly known.

The girl was more than the sum of her atrocious Wisconsin fostered parts. Finding her parents might not be either possible or wise but I was locked into the contract now and even worse I had locked Crowley in who would hold the contract.

This was not good, this was so not good.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

The journey to the all night diner had been rather quiet, Mercy's car seemed to be something of a trash can on wheels. Shiree had given me a headache by whining on about the old food wrappers, socks, pens, newspapers and general toxic bacterial spawning ground it was.

Mercy had been put out that a Ferrari or a customized classic was not on offer. I had actually been dining in Los Angeles at a very exclusive restaurant that most people had to give their first born for, if they wanted a reservation for anytime in the next two years. The rather up his own arse black eye who owned it had made an exception in my case, especially when I threatened to gut and fillet his prize winning chef with a little testicle jus on the side. A quick trip to the bathroom had wrenched me away from my pomegranate sorbet palate cleanser to Wisconsin, the culinary challenged quarter I was guessing as I stared at the plate of pie covered in aerosol foam cream that Mercy seemed to be enjoying. I stirred my black coffee and pondered how many calories the little biscuit was that came with it. Shiree had an encyclopedic knowledge of food calories, she had been counting them for years and it was starting to be a habit with me.

"This is really good, sure you don't want some?" She held out a spoonful of artery blocker and waved it in front of me.

"I think I can resist. Now tell me what you already know." I opened my notebook and clicked my biro again as an indication that this was strictly a business meeting and not some pie related outing.

"I know you are wishing you'd never met me and that Austen Gruber at school wears his mother's underwear when she's out." Mercy grinned at me, she seemed to be intent on enjoying this discomfiture on my part.

" You know full well what I mean, I need something to go on. I don't see why your thing," I made bunny ears in the air, "doesn't include knowing about your parents?"

I was trying to fathom out what exactly the 'thing' was with this girl and the more I knew about how her particular talent worked the more I could ensure I could do the contract and get out of here and away from her.

"That's not very nice," Mercy said shoveling in another piece of pie. The fruit seemed to be a sodden goo of red which could possibly mean cherry , strawberry, blood or raspberry. I was sure a real piece of fruit had never walked through the contents of the pie, not even on stilts.

It was difficult to cope with her being in my head, between Mercy and Shiree I felt like I was caught in some psychic pincer movement.

"Stop doing that, it's going to slow us down if you start doing a running commentary on every little thought I have go through my head." I slammed the pen down on the table just to emphasize my annoyance.

"Alright no need to throw your toys out the cot. The long and short answer is I know nothing apart from the day, time and place I was found outside the hospital, the name of the nurse that found me and that I am AB negative. Wool makes me itch and I have never been sick, not even so much as a cold. I fell off a school roof once and just got up and walked away." She slowed down on the shoveling for a Nano second, "I could be an alien, or maybe some army experiment to build the perfect soldier that went wrong."

I could tell she did in fact know nothing useful and that she had probably spent the last few years building up a myriad of explanations for what she was. I couldn't come close to guessing what she was. An angel had the power to heal themselves but she didn't smell of angel. A half-breed could be a possibility, some angel/demon one on one action had produced the odd anomaly but if they survived which most didn't they weren't telepathic or overweight … _Thank you Shiree, I tend to agree that more time in the gym and less pie is called for on her part_.

"Whatever you are, the contract stipulates we find the wonderful parents we should thank for giving us this vision of loveliness that sits stuffing pie down their throat before me." I felt a frisson of release at getting that off my chest.

She didn't slow down on the pie front but managed to stomp on my foot beneath the table. I smiled back at her, two could play at that sort of game but I'd bide my time, she had to sleep sometime.

"The name of the nurse that found you?" My pen was poised over the paper.

"Mrs Joanne Whitton, care of Pilgrims Rest Cemeter,y Milwaukee, I'm not stupid moron, I tried that route," she mumbled into her bowl. Truculence was a form of communication she was obviously honing to a fine art.

"I've read police reports, social workers endless reports…nothing. I've hacked my way into every official department that might know something but I've found zero Intel."

Now why was she sounding like a bad straight to DVD movie, she seemed to be one whole bagful of people this Mercy Montello. _Ok Shiree, I know its fucking pot calling fucking kettle fucking black but there's really just me here, ok and the sooner you realize that the better off we'll both be._

"She's got one hell of a mouth on her hasn't she? She's funny though, she makes me laugh, that's got to earn her some kudos given what's happening to her." Mercy waved the waitress over, for fuck's sake was she going to order more pie.

So she can hear Shiree, can she; she's welcome to tune in to Radio Moaning Bitch anytime she wants. The waitress stared at us, I suppose we made an odd sight, me in the tight figure-hugging high-end red dress with expensive jewelry and this disaster of a girl who looked like the words 'shopping mall' would make her gouge her own eyes out.

"Check please" I said quickly before any more pie could be ordered. I had a duty to keep this girl alive and healthy for ten years after all.

"What if I wanted something else," Mercy chipped in.

" We need to get to Milwaukee before sunrise if possible to save wasting a day and at the speed your car seems to travel it could take us hours," I replied.

"Why before sunrise, do you only do night shifts or something?" she asked , running after me as I paid the waitress off and headed for the door.

"Vampires tend to, and there's a cozy little nest in downtown Milwaukee who might know a few things that never get mentioned on reports."

"Cool, vampires," she yelled after me in the car park as I clambered very cautiously into the passenger seat of her trash can, feeling Shiree's violent shudder.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

The drive to Milwaukee passed off quite well as I refused to talk, I was too busy concentrating on surviving Mercy's driving which seemed to be rather erratic and although it was automatic it seemed to skip gears at crucial times which resulted in strange grinding noises.

"It needs a bit of work but it only cost $120 so I can't complain," the boy who sold it to me got busted for drugs and had to sell it to pay the fine.

"Have you actually passed your test, sweetie?" I was trying to sound calm as she took a bend on the wrong side of the road. She turned and looked at me.

"Eyes on the road, eyes on the road' I heard myself squeak grabbing the wheel.

"I'm nearly sixteen and they won't even let me do driver's ed yet, it's fucking stupid." I marveled at the wisdom of her high school teachers.

"So where is this place, have you been to Milwaukee before?" Mercy asked as she negotiated a huge pot-hole in the road. The neighborhood hadn't been gentrified yet, it was real estate you wouldn't even call up and coming, it was all been and gone.

"Certainly not, I avoid the sticks, I've had a thousand life times without amenities and with despair on tap. I tend to go for sunshine and valet parking these days." I glanced at a drug dealer propping up a wall on a street corner a sort of parody crossroads demon without the up side.

"So how do you know about these vampires then? Do you have a sort of demonic Yellow Pages where you can look things up?" She seemed to be asking a serious question.

"It's all about networking, magic can only get you so far, you need to know people that know other people who know people who on the whole you'd rather not meet."

I tapped the side of my head.

"I have a data base in here any fixer would kill for. When your job is to grant people's wishes I'm not a fucking genie of the lamp, some things have to be sorted out in a less complicated way by calling in favors. One of these vampires owes someone who owes someone who owes me so I'm going to yank Person A's chain and then this Vampire C here will have to come up with something or risk having his fangs pulled out by the roots and maybe a rather amateur decapitation. Pull up anywhere here, I'll just make a call." I took out my phone and dialed Mervyn.

After a few minutes of pleasantries, followed by mild threats , escalating to a promise of certain and painful death for all his grandchildren Mervyn gave me the name and the exact location of our vampire. I rang off after telling him we must meet for coffee next time I was in San Francisco.

"You wouldn't have killed them right?" Mercy said wriggling in her seat.

"Know your enemies weak-spot my little dumpling, he adores his grandchildren. Also know their address, their school , details help and may come in useful if you need to escalate. Never bluff, every now and then a little unpleasantness helps maintain your reputation. You're only as frightening as your last disemboweling one of my fellow black eyes used to say." I could see her out of the corner of my eye as I looked the address up on google earth." I was surprised to see her looking intently out of the car window as a homeless man pushed a cart across the road.

"You really are evil aren't you?" She said it as if she was thinking out loud.

"Well what is it about the word demon that you don't quite get sweet-pea? Evil is top of the list of essential attributes in the job description." Despite her weird 'thing' as I kept thinking of it she was after all still a fifteen year old girl with a head full of fluffy kittens and happy endings maybe.

"I'm just confused why it had to be you specifically that's all. I thought there might be something different about you but you seem a pretty standard I'm going to scare the shit out of you demon with maybe a little more make-up than I'd expected." She was poking at what looked like the remnants of a joint in the ash tray.

"What do you mean , me specifically?" My gut started to get a little knotty and soon Pepto-Bismol would be required.

"I knew it would be you at the crossroads, it was part of the plan."

I was wondering if the joint might still hold a hit or two. I had to ask, I always have to ask, way back when I was still human I always had to ask, it got me plenty of beatings and endless bruises.

"So what is this plan? I'm not seeing much evidence of planning on your part, apart from let's do a deal with a demon at some crossroads and get them to do the heavy lifting so to speak." I tried to lift the mood a little it was beginning to feel a little downbeat in the car but that may have been due to the toxic fumes from an open rucksack on the back seat the contents of which seemed to be screaming wash me at full volume.

"Nothing, it just feels like there's a plan that's all. Let's go find Dracula shall we?" She started the car that groaned into reluctant life and I gave directions to a rotting old brownstone a few blocks away. The night was warm and a few people were sitting on the stoop, looking useless and menacing at the same time.

"Stay in the car, lock the doors and keep the engine running they may be rather overcome by the generosity of me bringing them a fresh full blooded virgin for tapas."

"What makes you think I'm a virgin, " she scowled.

 _She has to be right, no one in their right minds would want that but then those country Wisconsin boys may be desperate._ Shut up Shiree I need my A game here, these vampires aren't a push over.

"Nothing, just guessing" I said and got out of the car and did my best nonchalant sashay towards the group.

I heard the car door slam and looked round to see Mercy getting out the car and following me. What did that girl not connect between the words vampires and likely to die I grumbled. I reached into my handbag and checked my gun and blade were still there. I recalled how annoyed Shiree got when I pointed out that a small Gucci clutch bag didn't cover the sort of eventualities I had to cater for.

A tall lanky boy, swaggered up to me. He was smirking and thinking this was his night.

"What you doin' here lady, we got no need of old mutton round here when we got prime steak," he smiled and nodded towards a pale girl in a low cut top and tiny skirt.

I stuck the blade in between his third and fourth rib, it was quite effective. I twisted it a little, Shiree was really pleased, the old mutton jibe had riled her. I on the other hand knew this wouldn't kill him just get his serious attention.

"Tell Grayson, someone want a word with him, he'll know who I am by now." The boy's face had shifted into full attack mode, fangs bared. I twisted the knife a little more. "Stings doesn't it, a gift many years ago from a chap who specialized in torturing vampires. Go tell him I'm here and want just a few minutes of his time, I don't want any trouble." I pulled out the blade and the boy slunk up the steps and into the house.

Keeping my eyes on the group on the step, I called to Mercy.

"What did I say, this isn't a fucking sequel to Twilight here, these vampires are like, like…..think of a heroin addict desperate for a fix and you are a walking bag of smack. You get what I'm saying right!"

She looked at me then at them, "Come on I'm tired of waiting." She started to climb up the steps picking her way carefully through the vampires that barred the way.

For fuck sake it had only been a couple of minutes it was all immediate gratification with teenagers today. I would have to go full on fighting demon, something that I avoided and this dress would be a bit of a handicap, designers never allowed for the equivalent of cage fighting when they put a look together.

I sighed and carefully placed by bag on the car's roof. Three minutes later I was picking it up and stepping carefully over the bodies and entering the house behind Mercy. It felt odd not doing the killing myself.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

I think it started with the large vampire who looked like one of those no neck bouncers with a wraparound radio mic outside a bar that really does need a bouncer, not just a burly events manager. He reached up and grabbed Mercy's arm. Good luck with that I thought maybe he'd end up spewing. For a second she looked down at him and she smiled, I know she smiled and then he got up and I knew she was dead and then something began to happen, his whole body started to glow blue and then burn from the inside out. First him then as the others grabbed at her one after the other they all burned. I expected the air to smell of burnt flesh, I'd been around too many witch burnings not to know the stink of burning flesh. There was nothing, I touched one of the bodies as I stepped over it. It wasn't even hot. I caught up with Mercy in the hallway.

"What the fuck is that all about," I said pointing at the bodies behind me. "We came for information not a fucking bloodbath. How'd you do that anyway, just another part of your thing, I suppose!" I was more than a little angry I was thinking how Grayson, the head of this little nest, would take to, I turned my head to count, nine of his family being slaughtered.

"Call me evil, that wasn't exactly the way I thought we should approach this, haven't you heard the saying less is more?" I was loathe to grab her arm to gain her attention, I had only had the vomiting and passing out experience I hoped never to advance to the spontaneous combustion stage.

She turned and looked at me, she had a look on her face that in all my many years on this earth and in hell I have never seen. It was absolute pity and power.

"I could hear them Yadi, all of them." There were tears beginning to run down her plump cheeks.

"What do you mean, hear them, hear who" I was beyond confusion and was also trying to keep an eye out for any other vampires who might feel like reeking vengeance on the girl who just decimated their nest.

"Who they used to be, the people they were before they were vampires and they were begging me to release them, to put them out of their misery. They couldn't bear to watch as more and more people died by their hands or who were tortured just for fun. One fed on a little baby and she couldn't bear it any more, she once had a kid herself and she couldn't stop. I did what they wanted, I let them go, I think it was a kindness don't you?"

I brushed some dirt of my dress and tried not to look at her, it was somehow painful.

"Well whatever it was, it's going to cause even more trouble now. Promise me you won't fry Grayson, we need his help remember, not even if some little voice comes wheedling round you and begs you to kill him". I couldn't answer her question, I know fuck all about kindness.

As we moved further into the house it grew darker. Eventually we came to a room that seemed a little more elegant than the others, which wasn't hard, a moth-eaten throw rug would have been stylish in this décor. There was a large bed at the far end of the room and from it came a voice, rather raspy as if he was having a hard time remembering how to talk. The tall lad I stabbed earlier stood beside the bed looking a little sheepish.

"Come in, I believe you want a little favor," he sounded old, some vampires made it past the thousand year old mark, I had met some in the old days in the old countries where vampires were revered as little gods. The old ones knew how to survive without drawing attention to themselves too much.

A woman slunk in giving us a wide berth and whispered in Grayson's ear. He looked up and his eyes almost glowed.

"People that come demanding favors shouldn't start by killing my children. It's impolite to say the least." I hoped Mercy would keep her mouth shut and let me do the talking, I could probably put it down to an incident involving overzealous and thirsty vampires and a pissed off demon. Of course she didn't, why for one moment would I have thought she would do the sane thing, the easier thing.

"I wasn't intending disrespect but I really couldn't ignore them, that would be rude." Mercy's voice had regained some of its cockiness.

Grayson rose slowly to his feet and walked slowly across the room, I wasn't sure if he was trying to look intimidating or his legs weren't that good anymore. His face looked in need of renovation much like the house.

"So you did this, what should I do with you," he came closer intending, I suppose, to give her the full benefit of his crumbling face and yellow fangs that were now openly on view.

He looked and then he stepped back and then looked at me,

"What have you brought to my house, what thing is this, go whilst you still can?" he looked at me and I could tell the bravado was to hide his fear. He was afraid of Mercy.

"I'll go as soon as you tell me what you know about me. You know something I can tell but you don't know you know it." Mercy was not going to budge, those vile boots of hers were planted on the threadbare rug and she didn't intend to leave until she got something out of the old skeleton.

"Mercy here was found on 1st September fifteen years ago on the steps of a hospital here in Milwaukee. She has a burning desire, should I say to find out who her parents are." I couldn't help get a dig in about the crispy corpses on his step, "I am thinking nothing in the past eighty years has got by you in this city that might be regarded as a little on the odd side. We need to know what you know."

"I know many things but nothing about this creature," he pointed at Mercy in a very dramatic way, old vampires tend to go in for over the top theatrics.

"Your name used to be Frederick Hoffer, you were turned by a man who came to your village to sell some sheep. You used to like torturing animals, like cats and birds, you were thinking of taking a child and torturing them before you killed it and you thought you could blame it on the stranger …..but he caught you fucking a sheep that night. Then he showed you what he was and then he fucked you, he used to call you his little lamb, sort of Broke Back Mountain with wool. You really are one twisted little bag of shit, even before you were a vampire." Mercy's voice was getting louder and more confident, Grayson began to retreat but Mercy kept getting closer and closer to him. I could smell his fear, I could clearly smell that he had wet himself.

"There's no voice left here pleading to get out, you were like this shriveled raisin of a soul before that vampire ever set eyes on you. I think I'm going to puke." I was quite enjoying myself, the girl had the bit between her teeth and was doing a splendid job of literally scaring the old vampire shitless.

"…and you can stop gloating over there, I think I'm doing all the work here you useless excuse for a demon." That stung, you can criticize your own but not in front of company, especially vampires they could be really smug.

"Ok, let's play good cop, bad cop. I, Mr Grayson, present you with the possibility of saving your wrinkly little skin. My friend here has a certain skill set that you have witnessed, I suggest if you want to stay cold rather than toastie you rack your desiccated little brain for anything that might help Mercy here, who is I have to point out an impatient little teenage bitch who might also be having a bad time menstruating." Mercy gave me one of, what I would come to call, grossed out faces; there were a lot of those faces yet to come.

"You've watched Taken haven't you," she whispered in my ear, "a certain skill set, I like that." She turned her attention back to glaring at Grayson who she truly did seem to find repulsive not just because he was elderly and now literally incontinent but because she could see something even worse inside him, lack of personal hygiene and a needy complexion was not the worst of his situation.

"Sixteen years ago, let me see, let me see, I think I heard some rumors about something happening in South Milwaukee that had some people a little spooked." Mercy took another step closer to him and he fell back on the bed.

"Not enough old man, details, we need more details other than some people were spooked."

"There was a church congregation convinced that they knew when the second coming was going to happen, in fact it was imminent."

"There are always people thinking the end of the world is nigh, that the apocalypse it round the corner. The book of revelation has been used for centuries to predict all sorts of crap, death and destruction and the world just keeps rumbling on."

There had been some close calls I had to admit , the Winchesters were busy bees stopping and sometimes causing lots of shit and Crowley himself wasn't above messing with the end times. He liked the status quo, it was balanced, kept everything ticking over nicely. I was a status quo fan myself. Don't mess with something that isn't really broken, or rather the world might be a bit wobbly but somehow it will putter on if we just leave it be.

Mercy nudged me to get me back on track.

"So this church, why was it out of the ordinary and not just the usual crowd of apocalyptic wannabees who think the Rapture is definitely going to include them going someplace lovely despite the fact that they are cheating on their wives or are desperate to be important because frankly they aren't." I could tell I was working through a few issues about such people as I spoke.

"They had miracles, they said they had real miracles, stuff to prove that he was among them already."

"Name of church?" Mercy was wanting to cut to the chase I could tell.

" The Church of the Blessed Light."

"Pastors name?" I decided to go along with her short hand approach.

"Think it was something like Stephen Goodbody," Mercy stepped a little closer to him. "It was definitely Stephen Goodbody but the church petered out and I think he left to go to another church Philadelphia way or that's what I heard."

I could see he was telling the truth, vampires are very fond of their skins and this one had held onto his for over four hundred years.

"Let's go, we got what we came for." I nodded towards the door, "No need to make more of a mess than we have to Mercy."

She seemed almost away in another world and I had to call her back. She turned and made for the door, I could see she was mulling something over.

As we got in the car I wondered why she had spared the old man but not the others.

"Because he's already dead, there's no soul in there anymore, no humanity left." Mercy's knuckles were white as she squeezed the steering wheel tight.

"So we just let him go on killing others or turning people into vampires? Not that I have any major objection to that, other than the fact that he was a singularly unattractive individual "

"No," she said it so quietly I could hardly hear her, it wasn't until we were a few blocks away turned the corner and saw a fire truck rushing in the other direction that I saw the plume of thick black smoke rising above the roof tops behind us. There was a huge violent boom as if a gas line had fractured beneath a house and blown it to kingdom come. I smiled at the phrase until kingdom come, we were now off to find some people or a pastor who had a very real sense that the kingdom had come, well they did sixteen years ago at least.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

The hotel was a cut above cockroach but several notches below respectable. I had argued for a decent hotel with room service and a fully stocked mini bar. Mercy insisted we keep a low profile as her foster parents might have reported her missing, not for the first time I suspect. I couldn't be bothered to argue, I needed sleep, Shiree needed to sleep. If I got overtired she got ratty like a squalling fractious child and she was a toddler at the best of times.

Mercy threw her reeking bag on her bed. I inspected the sheets for bodily fluids and fleas. I had insisted on buying clean underwear and a toothbrush and toothpaste at an all night store on the corner near the hotel. She had been surprised that a demon should be interested in dental hygiene or been appalled at going two days in the same underwear.

"You turn them inside out they'll be fine," she had suggested. It was my turn to do the grossed out face.

I looked at my Cartier watch.

"Its 6.33am and I need to sleep as do you. This contract is not going to be done if we are worn out and working on overdrive."

I suggested six hours sleep and then we'd investigate the church. I'd phoned a few acquaintance who were going to put out a few feelers, literally in the case of one of them. Mercy had rolled her eyes and complained but she wasn't tired. It's not every day you meet a crossroad demon and kill a nest of vampires all before your sixteenth birthday.

I hadn't lived for centuries in various humans without knowing that the human brain requires time to process and without that things get a little fragile. Shiree had hung on in there for five years because she seemed to process things very very slowly and for some reason she didn't seem too freaked out by the whole demon possession business. Of course I wasn't one of those who abused their host, drove it beyond mending and then just moved onto the next one. I kept her body out of harm's way whenever possible and she hadn't experienced too much gore and horror and when there was she was quite good at going to her happy place which was as far as I could ascertain a spa in Virginia with an infinity pool that she liked to float in and look out over the mountains.

I even try and follow her cleanse, tone moisturizing routine for fucks sake, greater love hath no demon for his meat suit Crowley once said when I told him about this after two or twenty tequilas.

Mercy insisted she definitely wasn't tired then fell asleep the minute she lay her head on the pillow. I watched her sleep and was fascinated that she seemed so peaceful. She had imploded nine vampires, burnt to death a few more and here she was fast asleep. I stood over her and stretched out a hand wondering if her particular skill set operated why she slept. I could put a pillow over her mouth and let her sleep permanently but the contract had to be kept.

She turned over and hugged the spare pillow close to her chest as if it were something precious she didn't want to let go. I padded into the bathroom and brushed my teeth. Shiree would spare me the beauty routine tonight. I stared into the mirror, I was one of those that magnified every little flaw and the harsh florescent light didn't do a girl any favors. I was going to have to work harder to maintain my allure or rather hers.

"Mirror , mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all, you aren't, you sorry excuse for a fucking demon." In the mirror I saw Crowley standing behind me. His face was I would say inscrutable but his inscrutable was some people's very pissed off.

I turned round wishing I had better underwear on, a visit from Crowley usually demanded top of the line lingerie or maybe just Chanel perfume a trick I had learned from Marilyn Munroe.

"Shhh…" I snuck round him and closed the bathroom door and leaned against it.

"Are you shushing me, are you fucking shushing me." I could tell he wasn't happy.

"Just thought it best not to wake her, might be a tad awkward." I smiled at him hoping this might be helpful, it wasn't.

"That little madam in there has us, no not us, me, fucking me, tied into a contract that potentially might end with my demise !" He was a little puce around the gills, not a good sign.

"It seemed so easy sweetie, a poor little orphan Annie wants to meet her momma and poppa, have a little chat and then ten years of relative happiness and then home to you to do with as you wish. It was so simple." I was playing the naïve ingénue, I didn't see the pitfalls but you the great one, the great King of Hell, the super brain was the only one capable of spotting a tiny flaw in the contract. Flattery was the way to any king's heart it had stood me in good stead for centuries.

I edged closer and wound my arms around his neck, I tentatively kissed him. He didn't get to be King of Hell by falling for a little kiss and make up sex but it was worth a try.

"Simple, don't you know by now, simple is always bloody suspect. This is Lee Harvey Oswald all over again." He grabbed my wrists and extricated himself from my embrace, he was squeezing just a little too hard for comfort.

Everyone in hell knew not to mention the Oswald thing, it was a sore point.

"I have been reliably informed that not only have you allowed this little bitch to tie me personally into the outcome of her contract but she seems to be a raving psycho who can decimate a whole nest of vampires singlehanded with you trailing behind holding her handbag." He was working himself up into one of his rages, this wasn't going to be a pretty sight. Poor Shiree was in for a bit of a battering, I'd be needing concealer tomorrow to hide the bruises.

"She doesn't have a handbag, she's really not the handbag sort, in fact I don't know what sort she is but to be fair I didn't know that until the contract was signed and sealed.

Suddenly he pushed me against the door and looked me up and down, I hoped the contract might have faded a little by now but no such luck. I wondered if Crowley's body might be on the verge of a heart attack

"What the fuck is this, the contract is meant to be on her, not you, you dipshit. What is this all about, you were one of my best. Is it Alzheimer's, alcoholism , general stupidity…you've been doing this long enough to know how this all works." He was giving me the full on Crowley glare. I didn't like the way he was using the past tense, it made me feel a little insecure.

"She's unusual, boss, how was I to know she was a bit flaky." I tried to keep my voice down, in fact I was whispering. It's a strange thing when someone whispers you tend to whisper back, it's a scientific fact or so it said in a magazine I picked up in the beauty shop a while back.

"Flaky, fucking flaky, she's way beyond flaky. Grayson is dead , his whole bloody family or whatever he called them is dead and the point is he was useful to me. You don't kill off useful people unless they pose a threat and behold he is annihilated and tiny bits of him are probably still floating over Milwaukee and drifting into people's hot dogs and fish-ponds." He was whispering but somehow with him it felt even more menacing.

He straightened up, and pulled down his jacket, Saville Row, you had to admire his sartorial taste.

"Wake her up, wake the little bitch up, now!" He had stopped whispering, I expected someone to start hammering on the wall any minute.

"I really don't think that's wise boss, she may not respond well to shouting. Perhaps I could have a word with her in the morning about her behavior." I was pressed up again the door hoping to keep him out of the bedroom.

"This is not some teenager who's been caught smoking behind the gym, this is about business. Contract or no contract she has to behave." With one well timed blow he sent me flying into the bath tub and blew the door off its hinges.

"Get up you little whore I'd like a word in your shell like." He was roaring like a mad bull, his blood pressure must be off the scale.

I clambered out of the bath, catching sight of my already swelling cheek bone in the mirror. Shiree was going to be really pissed off with me. I ran into the bedroom hoping to perhaps be the voice of reason , the still small voice of calm and if not that at least save Mercy from something painful. The contract didn't stipulate she couldn't have a good hiding from the King of Hell but then I caught myself laughing, why was I worrying about her, the kid who'd fallen off a roof and walked away without a scratch but maybe gravity and Crowley weren't in the same league.

Mercy was kneeling up on the bed and rubbing her eyes.

"Oh for fuck sake you dickwad put a sock in it, some of us are trying to sleep."

I held my breath, calling Crowley a dickwad was something only a very few could maybe survive and none of those were in the room at present.

It was not a good start if we were going to build some bridges here.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

I wasn't sure if I should jump in and try and defuse the situation, as they say, but actually it isn't that easy to yank the King of Hell's fuse out, he tends to make your head explode before you can get anywhere near his casing.

"Let me just clarify, you little turd, did you just call me a fucking dickwad?" I was hoping Mercy could detect irony when she heard it. Please don't just say yes I thought, just don't get mouthy now, not appropriate, so not appropriate , I was hoping her mind reading act was operational even if she was half asleep.

She began to laugh, and I don't mean that nervous sort of laugh people do when they are terrified, I'd heard that too many times not to recognise that. This was a full on belly laugh, perhaps this was hysteria, full on hysteria from an overwrought fifteen year old faced with an enraged demon of massive power.

"You're English, so fucking English, that's fucking ridiculous. Yadi I can see why the Downton thing was going on. Go on say 'Dinner is served Mi' lady', it'll make her day," she could hardly get the words out for laughing.

Crowley's eye was beginning to twitch, I hadn't seen that since he found out a demon had been skimming the profits from his monopoly on illegal whale meat imports for the Japanese market. I made a face at Mercy behind Crowley's back which was an attempt at a full on Marcel Marceau imitation for zip it. The thing about Crowley is he seems to know what people are doing behind his back, it's a skill he seems to have perfected over the centuries.

I may be way older than him in demon years but I had spent all that time trying to avoid being noticed and keeping a low profile I never had ambition like he did. Ambition made him the demon he is today I suppose, got him to where he is now, it fed his power. Without even turning he flung me against the wall and I could feel my throat beginning to constrict as if I was being strangled. I could feel Shiree panicking and I was not far behind her.

Three thousand years and I am brought down by a foul mouthed, stupid fifteen year old girl. I could quit the body but there was no place to go but hell and it looked like he had closed that door in my face fairly firmly. Somehow I was ok with staying here or rather in here, I had a sort of fondness for Shiree I didn't want her to die on her own. I caught myself thinking that and feeling this was not usual demonic behavior, perhaps close contact with whatever Mercy is was turning me into some strange aberration of a demon. I was just about to pass out when the pressure stopped and I slowly slithered down the very bad wallpaper onto the floor.

Crowley was staring at Mercy and I could see something wasn't right. Well it was right for me as I could now breathe, well nearly breathe and Mercy was on her feet and looking for all the world as if she was about to give Crowley a large unsavory piece of her mind. Don't I thought, please don't, quit while we are ahead and slightly alive.

"Ok, ok. I get it, don't piss off the King of Hell."

"Who the fuck are you talking to?" Crowley demanded glancing around.

"Yadi, you fucker," I heaved a sigh and spontaneously put my hand over my eyes waiting for bits of Mercy to hit me in the face.

"Who the hell is Yadi?" Crowley said in a slightly calmer voice, this was good, perhaps she has made him curious, Crowley was a curious creature it went hand in hand with his ambition. Know stuff, find out about stuff it could give you the edge in some situation.

"Yadi, your employee over there on the floor, your little old lady crossroad demon." Shiree, even though she had been close to extinction thirty seconds ago, rallied at this description and struggled to get up, dust herself off and smack Mercy in the mouth. I struggled to my feet.

"Don't you know the names of your own demons?" I willed Mercy to calm down, keep Crowley intrigued. He liked sparky, he even respected it, this could still end well or if not well, slightly better than a fucking car crash.

"Names, why should I know their names, there are too many of them to remember their names." I must admit I felt slightly hurt, we had spent a few hot and steamy nights together, Crowley and I, over the past three hundred years, we had even had quite a number of pleasant chats and he couldn't remember my fucking name.

"You know, I've had fuckers like you in my life from the get go; bullies, jumped up people in child services all pushing me around. They've pushed me all round this fucking state like I'm some sort of parcel. I've had case workers call me by the wrong name or not even remember it at all. They think they have power to make me do stuff without even bothering to know me, know who I really am. Go to school Mercy, stop running away Mercy, stop shouting at your lovely foster parents Mercy when I know that they know they are only in it for the fucking money. So names are important, they matter, so her name is Yadidatum and she's fucking old, she's seen more than you ever will see you jumped up piece of shit, so show her a bit of respect."

I was rather touched by her support but furious that it would probably be the last thing she ever said, contract or no contract Crowley would end her and find some loop hole and go 'oops' as he slit her throat or ripped out her guts whilst she was still alive. I had seen him do this, this was what he did. He might even get some mad sadistic demon to possess her and make her do terrible things to herself and others. He was a creative demon.

Mercy was now just an arm's length away from him.

"What's her name, tell me , what's her name?" She poked him in the chest.

"Go on, tell me, what's her name shit for brains Mr King of fucking hell'

" Yadidatum, her name is Yadidatum." Crowley stood his ground but had turned a strange colour. It was literally one of those moment when you are convinced your faculties are giving you faulty data. Crowley was saying my name because she had told him too. All power to her thing, her certain little skill set. I must admit I was inappropriately high fiving her in my head.

"I need a drink, where's the fucking mini bar in this shit hole of a place." Crowley lowered himself onto the bed and producing an immaculate white handkerchief mopped his forehead.

"What is she, how could you do a deal with her, she's all sorts of trouble, what am I saying , she's more than trouble she's a disaster." He seemed truly mystified.

"I thought she was just a little off center, you know sometimes teenagers they are all over the place, emotionally up one day , down the next, giving off all these mixed signals." I was waffling I could hear myself waffling.

"You sound like a fucking agony aunt, get this into your head she may look like a human teenage girl, she may have the soul of a human teenage girl but she is not just a human teenage girl and the quicker we either fulfill her contract or get rid of her some other way if we can the better I will feel, I am distinctly uneasy."

"Hello, still in the room here, I'm listening to all this chat about getting rid of me, not cool." Mercy wandered into the bathroom and came back with a glass of water. I was surprised when she handed it to Crowley, I was expecting her to throw it over him.

Crowley accepted it and then looked up at her, " You spat in it right?" She nodded and grinned. He drank it anyway.

"Ok, let's get this done little Miss Sunshine. I am going to get this pathetic demon here to stick to you like glue until we have fulfilled the contract. I am not letting you wander around doing all sorts of shit without me knowing what's going on. When we have found mum and dad and you've had your cosy chat with them, we are done you and I will not meet again until several of my little pooches comes to get you ten years down the line and then you'll go like the little lamb you really are. Is that clear? I am more than a little curious to know what you are and what spawned your lovely little self but quite frankly unless it threatens me or wha's mine I don't fucking care. In your case curiosity may kill the cat Mercy Montello and sometimes Kings of Hell."

"So you don't know who my parents are? You're like in charge of hell and you know fuck all." Mercy looked disappointed.

Crowley felt in his jacket pocket and handed her a yellow post-it note.

"Just a tad more than fuck all girlie, here's the name and current church of the pastor you're looking for. He's a piece of work, I just love a pastor who is batting for our side, makes it so much easier to get the job done. Try not to blow up his church, I believe it's in a busy residential area, might be a bit of collateral damage." He stood up and gave me the 'next time you could be dead meat' look before he vanished.

I sank onto the bed and tentatively explored my face, apart from a swollen cheekbone, which might or might not be broken, I was in one piece and so was Mercy.

"Don't suppose you can do the angel healing business?" I asked falling back on the bed.

"Don't know, is like some sort of weird Reiki shit, I could have a go if you like." She wandered over and hovered her hands over my face, she seemed to be concentrating, her face getting red with effort.

Nothing happened.

"You look like you're either trying to give birth or do a giant shit." She flopped back onto her bed.

"Seems it's only mind reading and death with a bit of making you puke thrown in. I could have killed him you know."

"Who, Crowley? I doubt it, he's not some old vampire you know." She shouldn't start thinking she was indestructible, that would not be helpful and would make me have to work overtime to keep her safe.

"No really I could feel it, so could he, but it wouldn't have been right, it wouldn't have been balanced. Must be like the force in Star wars, you got to have a dark side to balance the light maybe."

I could feel myself drifting off to sleep, Shiree needed her beauty sleep.

"Whatever, live long and prosper shithead." I was nearly asleep when I heard her whisper.

"That's fucking Star Trek moron."


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

The drive to Philadelphia was far more comfortable as I insisted on buying a car, I had enough of Mercy's excuse for transport. I wouldn't let her drive so sulking ensured silence for most of Indiana and a large part of Ohio. She seemed to need regular stops for refreshment however, Shiree making a running commentary on her calorific intake at each rest stop. She decided to talk as we sat in a roadside diner in Pennsylvania, it must have been slopping around in that weird brain of hers for miles.

"So you think I might be like Jesus or something?" she said poking at her pancake stack.

I nearly choked on my fifth black coffee of the drive, I needed something to stave off the boredom.

"No, absolutely not, don't pin the tail on that particular donkey." She must have been over thinking the second coming stuff Grayson had come out with.

She seemed a little relieved at my reaction, I suppose being some sort of Messiah might be a little scary if you were fifteen. After she got that off her chest she became a little more chatty which after a hundred miles made me long for the sulky Mercy. We managed to eventually agree on a radio station to tune into by letting Shiree choose, so two of us were pissed off and the third was humming along to country and western hits of yesteryear somewhere in the back of her head.

Late afternoon we stopped at one of those out of town shopping nightmares. I was determined to buy enough clothes and shoes to last for at least a week, I wanted to cover all eventualities. I got out my credit card holder and let it unfold before her.

"Go and get some new clothes and perhaps a hairbrush would be useful unless you could manage to find a hat to cover all that up with."

She held out her hand, "So card me bitch." I slapped a particularly shiny gold one into her palm.

She was quite taken with the idea that I had several no limit credit cards, mumbling something about all banks and credit card companies being in league with the devil.

She came back an hour later with a pack of men's boxers, a second hand T shirt featuring some cartoon character I had never heard of who seemed to be invisible inside a huge hoodie and a pair of black dungarees. Shiree was appalled, even I was appalled and I had seen some poor fashion statements over the centuries including a wig containing a birdcage full of songbirds and a loincloth woven from nettles.

We pulled up outside the church in a fairly affluent part of Philadelphia, Pastor Goodbody had gone up in the world since Milwaukee I noted. There was a light on inside.

"Let me do the talking this time, no frying people, no swearing and yelling. no poking people and making them vomit, nothing….are you listening to me!" I felt the need to outline the rules since Crowley's little visit…"Oh and no telling them what they are thinking, we don't want to frighten the horses so to speak."

Mercy rolled her eyes as if I had told her not to answer her elders and betters back. I presumed she'd been told not to do a lot of things in her short time on the planet.

Inside the church we could hear voices coming from the vestry at the back of the church.

"Maybe it's a bible study class or a prayer group or something. I had a couple of foster parents who used to drag me along to a prayer group, usually to pray for me, I think exorcism was planned at some point but I managed to get myself rehomed before it got to that."

She made herself sound like a dog some animal sanctuary had rescued.

"Exorcisms are not as good as they are cracked up to be, unless you've got the full works like a hunter or the Vatican, they only tend to make you irritable. I had a group of Puritans back in the seventeenth century try and get me out of a rather unpleasant prostitute once. They decided to kill her instead which I thought was a bit unfair considering she had only tried to do a couple of spells to up her trade a little and only succeeded in inviting me in for a stay. I tell you she was so pissed off with them she made me seem like a saint."

We followed the sound until we both suddenly stopped outside the closed door. This was no prayer meeting, although a high pitched female voice seemed to be invoking a deity at full volume.

" Yes…yes….O Lord yes…..praise be…..yes my Lord….harder, harder….fuck me harder you big bastard…."

We stared at each other, Mercy was trying not to laugh. I had noticed that most teenagers think that older people actually having sex was either disgusting or funny or a mixture of both. I decided if Pastor Goodbody was the big bastard referred to a sudden entry might give us the advantage.

I pushed open the door and we stepped into the light.

A man's large naked backside with his trousers round his ankles greeted us. The lady in receipt of his attention seemed to be rather older than I had expected, her grey hair was scraped back in a bun although several wisps seemed to have escaped during the course of the action. She groped for a pair of glasses that where perched on the table beside her and pushed the man away as if she had suddenly come to her senses and discovered him quite by accident between her open legs, like suddenly spotting a stain on your skirt that you didn't realize was there.

"We're looking for Pastor Goodbody I don't suppose you would know where I might find him?" I was certain I would find him extracting himself from the lady's nether regions.

Mercy mouthed the phrase 'nether regions' at me as if she couldn't believe I was thinking something so prim. She had her 'this is gross' face on again.

The woman pushed her way past us, only stopping to hurriedly pick up her underwear on the way out The man pulled up his pants and cinched the belt round his ample girth. He cleared his throat and ran his fingers through his thinning hair before he turned to face us.


	12. Chapter 12

_Sorry folks something odd happened to an upload and chapter eleven and chapter twelve got mushed to gether randomly but all is sorted now I think._

 **Chapter Twelve**

"See you next week Miss Spicer perhaps we'll examine the Song of Solomon Chapter Four Verse sixteen next time." I had to hand it to him the man was busy trying to make us think we had simply encountered a one on one little bible study moment.

" 'Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.' I do so like the King James bible it just feels so meaty in the mouth doesn't it but then even the devil can quote scripture I believe is quite a pertinent phrase in these circumstances." I could see he was guessing we weren't here to join his little flock.

"What do you want, I can assure you there is no money kept here in the church." He seemed to be looking at Mercy as he spoke.

"See I told you those dungarees make you look shifty, he obviously thinks you're here to rob the poor box." Mercy sat down on a pile of hymn books in a corner and examined her nails as if she'd just discovered them on the end of her fingers.

"No, we only want information which I believe you Pastor Goodbody may be able to give us. Sixteen years ago you were head of a church in Milwaukee. There were certain events we have discovered that occurred at that time which some have referred to as miracles and mention had been made of certain beliefs in the second coming." I felt I had summed the situation up rather well, succinct and clear, all those years of writing watertight contracts weren't wasted.

Goodbody looked uncomfortable, or rather terrified. I hadn't even put the frighteners on him and he seemed to be sweating copiously and it wasn't from his recent physical exertion.

"I swore to her I would never say anything, I swore on my life that if anyone ever came looking I would say nothing. She said there would be consequences if I talked" He was pacing up and down.

"Pastor Goodbody I think your sad little life is hardly worth saving and whoever the lady was I can assure you I am no lady and I will have no problem in gutting you like a herring, " I always liked that metaphor it summed the process up so well. I let him see me take out my blade from my bag, anticipation of pain is often the only thing you need to get what you want.

"You don't understand, she came to the church for sanctuary, we swore we would serve and protect her and in return she made people whole, the blind to see and the halt and lame to run and leap for joy." He seemed almost genuine for a moment but never trust a pastor or priest you find boning a member of the congregation, it's a rule of thumb that I have found always works for me.

"So she was some sort of faith healer?" I could go with some witch, some minor old deity, some angel on the run from heaven, they all seemed possibilities, I had seen such cures before.

"No, no, you don't understand she was far more than a healer, she was the creator, the maker of heaven and earth, she moved upon the face of the waters." He was making no sense, whilst I was more than happy to embrace the idea of a female God, the likelihood of God turning up in Milwaukee and allowing a fat repulsive man like Goodbody access to him in any shape of form would not form itself into a cogent explanation.

"Ok, ok, whatever she was or still is maybe, let's just put that to one side. Was she pregnant at some point, because my friend over there, is thinking this woman may be her mother and we are looking for one of those reality TV happy reunions?" I waved the blade about a little and then suddenly brought it down between his splayed fingers on the desk top. It vibrated slightly from the force with which I'd thrust it into the table. Goodbody jumped back , expecting I presume to see blood, his own blood, or a finger missing.

" She may have been, how would I know, she just disappeared as suddenly as she came." I was not loving this man, he was being singularly unhelpful. Maybe Mercy ought to be let loose on him, maybe she could make him literally spew his guts up complete with some useful information.

"No, he's told us all he knows, there's a bit in his mind I can't get at though, like it's been bricked up." Mercy seemed resigned to what little he did know.

"Well fucking break the wall down, you need to know everything he knows right, no good being squeamish now." She looked at me as if I was suggesting she should eat broccoli or wear peach lipstick.

"Ok, I get it, no making a fucking omelette without breaking a few bird shit covered eggs." She shambled to her feet and gazed at Goodbody.

Standing outside the church ten minutes later, I held her dreads back from her face as she vomited into a rosebush.

"I didn't know it would do that, I never meant to…."

I made what I thought were reassuring mother hen sounds, whilst trying not to laugh even Shiree was laughing I could hear her doing that strange snorting sound she does when she really finds something funny. I couldn't see why Mercy was taking it so hard.. She'd broken the wall down alright but in the process Pastor Goodbody had undergone something of a metamorphosis.

"Do you think it's permanent, should we call someone?" Mercy seemed genuinely worried.

"Like who? " I wasn't sure who would be up for dealing with the situation.

"What is it, I can feel a sort of sense of Goodbody but it's not quite him or even human anymore, like he's just...just'

"Vegetating" I offered and burst out laughing and then Mercy couldn't let her angst outweigh her sense of the ridiculous.

"What is he exactly?" she asked.

"I think he's some sort of azalea but flowers aren't my strong point, not a lot of those around in hell." I had found Goodbody changing into a potted plant but it didn't stop me flicking through me database trying to find a match for such a thing. Witches could do transformation spells but usually they had to be in the room with the' transformee' to do it, distance transformation would put you in the witch super league. However this was obviously something that was like a trip wire . The spell only detonated or whatever it was did if the wall Mercy talked about was threatened. That was way beyond any witch's capability and I had known the best over the centuries. It could be some sort of planted curse but again that would be beyond the fae, goblins. imps and all those things that hang around on the edges feeding off human misery by causing it.

"But we have to do something, he might need watering or something." Shiree was wetting her knickers, if she had any, she was laughing so hard.

In the end to appease Mercy we watered the plant and left a note saying Pastor Goodbody had been called away to a family emergency and wasn't sure when he'd be back meanwhile could someone please look after the plant and take good care of it.

Later as we ate Philly cheese steaks, or rather Mercy did and I toyed with a Cesar salad with lite dressing I asked her if she had found anything behind the wall.

She scrabbled around in her pocket and produced a dirty piece of cloth with what looked like little rosebuds on it, although it was so dirty it was difficult to tell. I saw her, she was wearing a shawl like this. She hid what she looked like behind the wall, I couldn't see her very clearly but she was definitely wearing this." She stared down at it as if it was bringing back the memory of whatever she had seen in Goodbody's head prior to him turning into an azalea.

"So how come you have a piece of it?"

"I was wrapped in it when I was found as a baby."

"So it would seem mommy dearest may well be this super creator, mega healing, pot plant maker woman but all this doesn't make us any closer to finding out where she is now, back to square one really." I was feeling that this contract could drag on and something I didn't do well was nursemaid people, especially ones that are sulky, are stuffing their face at every opportunity and are prone to exploding vampires and turning people into pot plants now and them.

"Not really square one, I have an idea which might work." She mumbled as she slurped down what appeared to be a bucket of root beer.

"I need you to go and see Crowley and ask if we can borrow a hell hound and if he won't you'll have to steal one."

I stared out of the window behind her, "Oh look," I said, pointing through the glass, "flying pigs, did I hear you mention stealing, Crowley and hell hound in the same sentence , my little psycho comrade."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. At least this hotel room didn't have strange stains that looked as though something you'd rather not guess at had seeped down from the room above.

I could feel Shiree drifting off to sleep, it had taken ages to finally be sure she would stay that way. The art of hypnotizing your own host is a skill some demons never master partly because they find it too difficult. Many demons would not be able to find their way out of a paper bag let alone their host. Escape was the only thing that pushed them out of a body, to exit and re-enter was graduate school stuff. Most of the younger demons these days would find getting out of kindergarten a challenge.

"Okay she's under, I can't believe I agreed to do this, are you sure this is the only way. Doesn't your little bundle of powers have something else that might do the trick?" I could hear myself sounding pathetic but fulfilling this contract was putting me through the wringer. I did quiet, efficient normal contracts, this was my USP not poking a stick into a hornets' nest called Crowley and wiggling it around.

"I've told you, a hell hound will find her, they'll smell her on the piece of shawl. I know from meeting Crowley what a hell hound can do, it was quite near the front of his mind, he really loves those dogs doesn't he?" I could see Mercy was getting tired of telling me why, this had to be done, somewhere in her head there was a logic that didn't quite translate into any language I could understand.

"Shhh…keep your voice down, you'll wake her up," I whispered through gritted teeth. "After I've smoked out , she's really vulnerable and really weak, promise you'll stay with her, keep her safe I need to find her here to get back into otherwise I'm useless to you, just another bodiless demon looking for a home," I wasn't above playing the 'support a homeless demon' card.

"I know you've told me like a hundred times, I promise, girl scouts' honor , that I'll look after Shiree while you're gone," she crossed her heart in a less than convincing way.

"You're no girl scout Mercy. I want huge bouquets of red roses at my funeral ok," and with that I smoked out.

It had been a while since I'd been in hell, I usually avoided it, it was a bit chilly to be frank and I didn't do thermal underwear. Why people think hell is hot always escapes me, cold is far more miserable but then I have always worked better in hot climates.

Crowley seemed to have redecorated , no more endless queues it was all medieval castle and stone walls again, he had gone old school or maybe it would be called retro gothic. It took me a while to convince the jumped up little toad of a PA that I needed to see him, he blathered on about there not being a window open in his Majesty's diary for at least a year. I ripped up his appointment diary he was pouring over and left him wishing he had taken a sick day.

"She wants a hell hound, she is joking right, they're not some Chihuahua she can stick in her handbag!" Crowley bellowed.

"I keep telling you she isn't the handbag sort, she just has this strange belief that one of your hounds could track down her mother from sniffing this old bit of shawl she'd been carrying around for years, it's ridiculous." I thought I was making a good attempt at convincing him I was finding her request just as mad as he was. Then I did a retake and realised I did actually think it was mad.

Crowley suddenly put his game face on, the one he uses when he's being devious, which is most of the time but this was the intense devious look. I have studied his many faces over the centuries and this was bordering on scale 10 wily.

"If she wants a hound , then a hound she shall have and if it happens to accidentally rip her throat out then how can we be held responsible, it was what she wanted after all. Come with me I have one in mind."

The kennels smelt rancid, even at rest the hounds seemed to drool and fart gases that could knock out a whole battalion of demons. I was glad they were caged up, although they didn't attack demons, well not unless Crowley ordered them too. He walked up and down the cages , stopping to pet the odd one.

"This is the result of centuries of good breeding, Ripper here has a pedigree that nearly goes back to Lucifer's fall, they can track anyone or anything and they won't stop until they find what they are after and then of course they can tear a man to pieces in less than 20 seconds, I've timed them personally." I tried to nod and make encouraging noises, the hounds could smell my heart wasn't in the whole dog breeding conversation, they threw themselves at the cage door snarling and snapping.

"They can smell fear, try and keep it together or they'll be howling all bloody night and a couple have got to work tonight, two contracts to collect and I haven't fed them for three days just to make sure they are sharp." He scratched Ripper behind his ear and the hound quietened. I was hoping Ripper wasn't going to be loaned to us or rather Mercy, I would be taking a very back seat on all this canine nonsense.

" Come round here, I want you to see Flea she's perfect for the job. Totally uncontrollable and a nightmare around the other hounds, she's put two of them out of action for weeks, nearly ripped their bloody throats out. She won't even listen to me and that's not on. I was going to feed her to the other hounds because she's no good to me but now I can see that she will be perfect for our little friend."

We rounded a corner and there away from the other hounds was Flea, she was the ugliest hell hound I had ever seen and they were all plug ugly. Imagine a mastiff the size of a pony but with folds of skin like one of those wrinkly Shar-pei aberrations. It was the small horns that gave them away as hell hounds though, that and the immense teeth when they opened their big saliva drenched mouths.

"So how do we take delivery so to speak? I'm thinking caged would be good." Crowley laughed, he seemed to think that was intentionally funny, I laughed as well just to try and seem as if I was in on the joke.

"You pop home and Flea here will be at your door in a few hours, she can be fast when she puts her mind to it. I'll make sure she's hungry that should up the likelihood of a little 'accident' shall we say." He was grinning from ear to ear, I almost laughed myself as Flea lunged at him through the bars of her cage and ripped a huge chunk out of his Armani suit.

"What should I do?" I asked hoping he would say something helpful.

"Keep you bloody fingers out of the way if you want your meat suit to be able to play the piano again.".


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**

I eased back into Shiree as smoothly as I could, sometimes the shock of being possessed or repossessed in her case could make a body simple shut down and total organ failure was a ball ache to reboot. I detected the effects of alcohol. What had happened in my absence?

I sat up and tried to stop the room spinning. This didn't seem right, I suspected there had been some trouble whilst I had been gone. Mercy crept out of the bathroom.

"Is that you Yadi?" She seemed relieved. I nodded and tried not to throw up in the wastepaper bin.

"Thank fuck for that, I was thinking I might have to knock her out. She'd been a nightmare, she's drunk everything in the mini-bar and then started telling me how to make the best of myself." Mercy whined.

I examined her, something had indeed occurred mainly involving hair scrunchies and make up. The effect was to make her look like a surprised Yorkshire terrier with cheekbones sculpted from a shit load of blusher.

"I see she didn't stay under for long, you have to hand it to her she's a fighter. I could feel Shiree snoring in the back ground and mumbling incoherently about something involving vodka and a trouser press. She was decidedly drunk and pissed about the lack of more booze.

"You should have stopped her, " I moaned, beginning to feel the third bourbon sloping around in my empty stomach.

"She's a fucking monster when she's had a couple of drinks. I had to bar the door at one point to stop her going shopping and it's 2 am, who goes shopping in the middle of the night?"

I didn't like to tell her that Shiree could shop during a zombie apocalypse.

"So did you get one?" Mercy asked trying to extricate a pink and white scrunchie from a nest of dreadlocks.

"Yes, he was actually ok with the idea," I had started using the word 'actually' a lot lately, more Downton fall out I thought.

"Where is it then?" she looked around as if it was already here and just invisible. Whilst only demons and people who have signed on the dotted line with Crowley could see a hell hound their presence usually manifests itself in furniture falling over and slobber appearing on the carpet.

"You'll see her when she arrives, you'll know her by the bite marks on your throat." I had no problem warning Mercy about the likelihood of her being killed by the hound as I had this strange certainty that whatever the hound did Mercy would survive. I know a survivor when I see one and Mercy was a Grade A one.

I tried to sleep whilst Mercy tapped away on her tablet and paced the room after her sixth coffee in three hours.

"For fuck's sake try and get some sleep, you'll feel like death warmed up tomorrow or rather today." I moaned, my eyes closed to fend off any possibility of light entering my eyeballs and torturing my already throbbing brain.

There was a small sound as a letter was pushed under the door. Mercy picked it up and ripped it open.

One hell hound as requested

Enjoy

Crowley

P.S Her name is Flea

Before I could stop her Mercy flung open the door. Taking up virtually all of the corridor outside our room was the hound from hell. Her eyes were blazing red and she was falling back on her haunches ready to spring.

I jumped up from the bed, which was a big mistake as everything for a moment went out of focus. When I could see straight again all I could see was a huge ball of fur and the occasionally sight of Mercy's dread locks and boots tumbling round the room.

I recalled Crowley's advice about keeping my fingers out of the way and tried to pull the two apart using the tried and tested kinetic powers. It was difficult to get a wedge in between the two of them, I couldn't see any blood which seemed a good sign. Slowly the heap rolled to a halt in front of me and Mercy stood up and wiped her hands on the side of her dungarees.

"Fuck that's a lot of drool for one dog, she reached out both her hand and proceeded to grab the dog by the loose skin round her neck and lower her to the ground.

I made a mental note to add strength to her skill set as a fully grown hell hound weighed in at 350 pounds at the scrawny end of the continuum and to force one onto its side was beyond any human , until now. Once the dog was on its side Mercy began to stroke the dog from its neck down the full length of its flank. Gradually the dog stopped fighting to get up and soon it seemed totally relaxed. She scratched its belly and its hind leg began to wiggle.

"I watched the Dog Whisperer a lot when I was a kid, you've got to be the alpha pack leader." She grinned over her shoulder at me.

Crowley obviously didn't have the alpha gene, but I wasn't going to be the one to tell him.

I sidled up a little closer, unsure as to whether the hound would see me as something considerably lower down the food chain than Mercy.

"It's alright she's fine now I think she just needed a bit of TLC and boundaries. I was always being told I needed firm boundaries."

"I don't expect anyone tried to flip you on your back and tickle your tummy though." I offered edging past the hound, which seemed to take up most of the room.

Mercy went off to the bathroom and came back with a wastepaper bin full of water and placed it down in front of the dog.

She lapped it up, then raised her head and shook it sending slobber flying in all directions. I was finding it difficult to think of it as a 'she', 'it' seemed more appropriate.

I peered at some form of yellow mucus that had landed on my Victoria Secret silk pajamas. Mercy followed my gaze.

"Don't take it personally Yadi, look on it as a kind of scent spraying or a sort of welcome to her pack."

"Promise me, this dog goes back when the job is done," I could already sense a customized bandanna being tied round its neck and doggy chews in the car.

"As you're up now, how about going to get some breakfast and we need to take Flea for a bit of a run and get her some dog food. What do they eat?"

"Humans," I replied closing the bathroom door behind me. I needed a shower to get the stench of hound off me.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

Sometimes I think back to the old times sitting on the side of a rocky outcrop watching goats. They are fascinating characters, smarter than they look, that's probably why the devil has been depicted as part goat for centuries I suppose. They can even thrive feeding off a bleak landscape like the part of Mesopotamia I was born in. I used to marvel at their agility, the way they could jump onto rocks or the smallest of ledges without falling. I think I was happiest back then, alone with the goats, no one to bother me until I got back to the village and then it was always Yadidatum do this, do that, make bread, get me goats milk, marry the scrawny mean man with the bigger goat herd than ours, keep your mouth fucking shut Yadidatum and lick my arse at every opportunity.

At certain auspicious times, which usually meant when we were losing goats or generally starving we would make a sacrifice to the gods, just to keep on their best side. It was always a young ram, female goats after all were too useful and the male of the species was always sold to a god as a big and better deal. I laugh now when I think of how many rams had their throats cut to placate some dubious local deity. Now and then it was some young virgin with big scared eyes or totally out of it on some foul brew of wine and herbs that ensured she went to her death totally pissed or virtually unconscious. It was the date rape drug of choice if your date happened to be a god. Those days were not so good, but out in the wild with the goats was my happy place and right now I was scouring the horizon through the car windscreen looking hopefully for a rocky hillside and some goats.

"I don't think I've met a goat, I've seen them but I can't really say I've met one personally." Mercy said suddenly apropos of nothing, well not nothing it was what she heard in my head. I think I need to sit down with her and discuss personal space or rather personal head space.

We were following the GPS tracker Mercy had attached to Flea's collar. Mercy had insisted that she needed a collar but the visit to Pet City had been a little stressful. The hound, was obviously now superglued to Mercy's side and leaving her outside the store was not going to happen. Whole shelves were wrecked as the hound bounded beside Mercy along the aisles. Off course the security cameras would only pick up the apparent spontaneous toppling of shelves and displays where ever Mercy went and a huge amount of inexplicable goo draping itself all over the end of aisle special offers. The various animals in cages at the far end of the store started to go crazy as they of course could see the hound but as Mercy ran her hand along the cages they seemed to calm and become quiet. I scribbled 'animal control' on the bottom of the list that I was compiling about her particular skill set.

They didn't have a collar big enough to get round Flea's neck so we eventually ended up with the longest belt we could find in High and Mighty. I was surprised that there were men that fat but then peering into the Dunkin Donut store next door I saw that I was sadly ill informed. Shiree started a whole dialogue about trans fatty acids that was amazingly boring but on the other hand quite erudite for her considering that she and I were still nursing the hangover from hell or rather from the mini bar. I thought the bitch, hound one I mean, would fight having a collar put on, after all they are not pets but she meekly sat down and allowed the belt and the attached tracker we had found in a dubious electronics store, to be placed round her neck. 

I drew the line at allowing the hound in the car because a) it wouldn't fit and b)being in any small enclosed space with that farting slobbering monster was so not going to happen and Shiree was already winding up for a full blown hissy fit that would make my eyeballs ache and my guts crotchet themselves into a hanging basket full of shit. It proved unnecessary however as Mercy after a bit of belly rubbing and general behind ear scratching pulled the bit of rosebud rag from her pocket and held it over the hound's nose.

"It's just going to find you , idiot and you're like right here in front of her, your mother's scent can't be on that anymore, it's impossible."

Mercy rubbed the hounds ear again and whispered into it.

"I can sort of smell someone or something on it and it isn't me and Flea here is the best tracker ever, she knows what she has to do, don't you girl!" She patted Flea or more like slapped her on her side, I saw you had to sort of scale up ordinary dog/person interaction with this particular beast."

The dog looked at Mercy and barked, which blew over a nearby rubbish bin that was concreted into the ground. Then she just took off, she was just a blur within a second. I'd heard about the speed of hell hounds but I'd always just been in on the situation after they had found their quarry or what was left of it. They could shift, I had to hand it to the Flea. I wondered if she had slobber flying behind her as she ran.

Mercy looked up from her phone, something top of the range that my credit card had purchased for her. I thought she wasn't above taking money courtesy of hell.

"In a good cause Yadi, I'm a lost little foster child who needs to be given hope, a purpose in life, answers to all her many agonizing questions. Think of it as a donation to a good cause, namely me."

"You should consider a career in fund raising for charities, you could have a real future and try and cut out the whole thought reading business it is quite…quite… quite a violation."

"You a fucking demon, living in someone's else's fucking body are talking to me about fucking violation." I could tell she was a little annoyed her fuck use rating had shot up to three in one sentence.

"Don't ever forget that until that fucking ten years is up you have to look after me, and you're not my fucking mother and neither is Shiree so just don't you ever dare fucking lecture me about violation or anything else."

I could see I had hit a nerve somewhere so in that age old tactic for awkward situations I changed the subject.

"So where is our little pooch now then?"

"She appears to have stopped and is going round and round in circles near a place called Lebanon in Kansas, what the hell is in Lebanon and why the hell should my mother be there. Anyway it's a twenty hour drive from here to there so drive."

I had a vague idea what was in Lebanon, there had been rumours. I tried not to think about it, I tried to get Shiree to tell me about her experience of Botox, I knew that could take hours, that might stop me thinking anything about Kansas and Mercy finding out what might be there and how it might end up killing me.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Sixteen**

It took nineteen hours thirty-one minutes, four stops to replenish snacks and one stop for a full pancake stack with bacon and syrup to get to Lebanon. We homed in on the tracker which seemed to be still now a mile or so out of town. Mercy spotted Flea sitting under a tree at the top of what looked like a rough track.

She was ecstatic to see Mercy and distinctly indifferent to seeing me. The dog set off down the track and we followed or rather Mercy followed and I hung back. It was as if I was trying to walk into the teeth of a huge force nine gale, I knew what they meant and it wasn't just psychological , whatever was up ahead was not good. By not good I mean really very bad, for a demon that is. This place reeked of warding, not just old cloaking spells but heavy duty 'Keep Out' signs that promised death and destruction to all those of a demonic bent. The rumors were true I could tell this was a full on hunter place and more than that I could almost taste the work of those old Men of Letters.

They were meant to be extinct like dodos and door to door vacuum cleaner salesmen. I had met a couple in the old days but luckily survived it, they were ruthless but not as fast or violent as hunters. I was fourth demon on the left of the back row, so to speak, in the tussle so I smoked out as quietly as possible whilst others were fighting. I had quite liked my host back then, a singer in a disreputable bar in Chicago, she had once been on a date with Capone but he had sent her home early in a cab she was so boring and a very bad singer. What can I say I have a type, Shiree is only the latest in a succession of women who may have to ask for the recipe for ice.

Mercy turned and yelled at me, "Come on, I told you to wear some decent shoes, those high heels are so fucking ridiculous out here."

"May I remind you that at this point in time I should be having my hair and nails done somewhere expensive, driving to the back of beyond and doing stupid things is your choice not mine…and if I'm going to die I might as well fucking do it in a great pair of shoes." I think the last comment was Shiree but on the odd occasion, like when death was imminent we sort of gelled on our outlook on life.

"What the fuck do you mean, die. No one's going to die, well I don't think they are, seems unlikely. Why are you breathing so hard, you must be out of shape, I thought Shiree was the private trainers pin up girl."

"I'm just having a tiny problem breathing this place is warded like they were expecting a whole army of demons, can't you feel anything?"

Mercy shook her head and walked back towards me and grabbed my hand.

"No not a thing and Flea seems fine so you're probably having a panic attack. I had a foster mother once who had them, she said she was agoraphobic but it didn't seem to stop her going down to the local bar most nights." Mercy held out her hand and despite Shiree's reservations about her having dog slobber on them I took it and straightened up as the feeling of not being able to breathe had ratcheted way up to a 'fuck I'm going to die on a dirt track in the middle of fucking Kansas' level.

As soon as I touched her hand I began to feel better, perhaps she was right perhaps I was simply tired and panicking for no good reason. When we rounded a corner I knew this wasn't psychological there were warding spells painted all over the walls of an old concrete bunker just ahead.

Flea began to bark furiously, "Let the hound announce our arrival why don't you, gives them time to make the coffee and get out the cookies." I said trying to take deep breathes before a whole posse of hunters burst out and killed us or more particularly me, Mercy could probably save herself and Flea well she could just run off or take a few hunters down with her. All in all standing outside the now not so secret Men of Letters Bunker with a baying hell hound and a girl with a crossroads deal was not the wisest thing I had done this side of agreeing to a night out on the town with Caligula.

"Come on, it's going to be fine, if my mother is here she's not going to let us get hurt is she?" I was again reminded that this girl with all the powers was still only fifteen and was harboring romantic notions of a mother inside who would embrace her lost child and give a perfect answer as to how she had come to leave her on a hospital doorstep.

Mercy somehow got Flea to stop barking and we tried the door at the side of the building. Strangely it was open. Immediately I thought no one leaves a door open like that unless they are setting a trap and they want us to come in and then I'd get the full holy water ice bucket challenge and Shiree would have a burning matted clump where her hair used to be. _No I was joking, it'll be fine Shiree just hang on in there we're with Miss Loony over there and she can explode vampires remember?_

Mercy edged inside closely followed by the Flea I came a tentative third.

"Hello, anybody there, just visiting, not wanting any trouble, just a quick chat." Mercy yelled out.

"A quick chat, who do you think these people are that live here, normal people? She had no idea who she was dealing with a hunter seeing her with a demon and a hell hound would probably kill her and angst later about her possible humanity.

"Do you think they have a toilet, I'm dying for a piss," she asked wandering further into the room.

"Of course they'll have a toilet, as for letting you piss in it, I somehow doubt it." Behind us the hound suddenly growled, which sounded like an old diesel engine on a tractor turning over .

A man walked through the door, carrying a bowl of what looked like cereal and a mug of coffee. He seemed perplexed and extremely angry at the same time.

"Oh so you're the fucked up angel, you don't look very angely to me." Mercy was smiling at the man and looking him up and down.

"I don't think there is such a word as 'angely', the correct term is angelic I believe," he responded.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter Seventeen**

I was waiting for him to produce an angel blade from somewhere, I always thought they had special blade pockets sewn into their clothes. However he seemed surprisingly static in the face of what to him must seem like a home invasion by demons.

"I should warn you, the demon and the hound are not welcome here and should leave or I will kill them." He was very calm and measured, which I had to admire as even an angel would have to work hard to kill a hell hound. As for me, apart from a few kicks and punches I might get in, I doubt whether he would have to break a sweat to kill me.

"I'm sorry but they're with me and all we want is a chat and hopefully the whereabouts of my mother and we'll be out of your hair. Are you sure you're an angel you look like Mr Hanson my sixth grade history teacher."

"I'm sure I am but there have been times when that's been less than crystal clear I have to admit." He seemed to be talking to keep us occupied or maybe waiting for reinforcements.

"You really are fucked up aren't you, there's a shit load of guilt just swimming around in that noodle of yours, makes my fuck ups seem like a 'two minute on the naughty step' job." Mercy moved closer and he stood his ground but looked puzzled, I'd noticed many people, monsters, demons and now an angel had that same look near her.

"I would prefer it if they left," he nodded towards the exit as he put the cereal and mug down on a table.

"I thought angels didn't need to eat?" I offered by way of a non-threatening question like "Where the hell are the Winchesters and should I be worried about my future as a demon or anything living in general."

"We don't need to but sometimes we want to, I have found this particular cereal very satisfying although I am prepared to admit it is not the most nutritious of snacks."

"Lucky charms, good choice, although I'm a Capt'n Crunch girl myself. " Mercy peered into the bowl and I could see she was thinking it was about snack time."

"No I'm not, although those pancakes were a long time ago." She snapped.

"I'm sorry I'm not quite following the conversation," I looked at him more closely , I knew it was Castiel as I had seen him once with Crowley when they were hatching some sort of deal. I could have told them it was going to be a major fuck up; heaven and hell don't mix and when they do it's always the lower ranks that bear the brunt.

"She can read minds, " I pointed out, "In fact she has trouble staying out of mine." I gave Mercy what I thought was my best pointed look.

"Is she a witch?" he asked.

"No , just different" I replied.

"Hello still in the room here, would you please tell me if my mother is here, Flea here knows she is, so there is no point in lying. I presume angels tell fucking lies like the rest of us." Mercy pulled up a chair and sat down facing Castiel. I had to admire her, not many fifteen year olds could meet an angel, even a rather shabby care worn one like this and not throw up their lunch.

"What am I thinking, young lady?" the angel asked, Mercy stared back at me nodding her head towards the angel.

"He's a little Asperger's isn't he, I had a foster brother for a whole year who was diagnosed with it, he kept asking me if I had reached puberty as he had found a book on it in the school library…and you are thinking how best to dispatch my friend Yadi here and Flea and then see if you can detain me to find out who or what I am. You're very clear, which is quite refreshing, nothing much mixed in with it that I have to extract to get a clear picture. Can I just say that if you so much as hurt a hair on their heads…I will end you, angel or no angel. Nothing personal ..it's just how it is." Mercy had gone very pale which I had learned was an indication of her 'I'm not fucking about here' approach.

"That would seem a little grandiose," Castiel responded. I shook my head and made my don't annoy her face behind Mercy's back, although why I should want to save this angel's hide I wasn't quite sure.

He stepped forward and did the full intimidating stare with a touch of the huge shadow wings on the wall behind him. A touch theatrical I thought but really good for getting people to piss themselves. I wondered briefly if Mercy might find this more scary than my demonic showcase at the crossroads. I so hoped Castiel would go the way of the vampires, nothing personal, as Mercy had said, but he did intend to kill me and I was not in favor of that.

"This is meant to scare me is it? I've had foster parents, social workers and policemen more frightening than that. What is it about 'I just want a little chat' that you don't understand? Perhaps you should just calm down and unruffle those feathers of yours, Mr Castiel before something bad happens."

I could tell the angel was not going to just back down although I could sense he was confused and if even I could sense it, it was a dead cert that Mercy could.

Mercy walked towards Castiel which I thought was a bold move in the circumstances. She held out her hand and almost as if he couldn't help it he took hold of it in his.

She just stood and looked at him, this seemed to take forever but some things are in a strange time loop of their own. It was as if she was showing him something that was beyond his understanding and angels have been around forever, since the beginning of time.

"Are we good now?" Mercy asked.

"I think we are but the dog and the demon do make me uncomfortable." He looked over at me and at Flea who was busy demolishing a large chair as if it was a chew toy.

"Flea, lie down, I'll get you something to eat in a bit." Flea lay down his huge head resting on his paws that were the size of massive dinner plates.

"Should I lay down as well while you find me a fucking bone?" I sneered, a little put out by the implication that the dog and I were on some sort of equal footing.

"No just try and be less fucking annoying," she grinned, "But that's like impossible I expect."

"So my mother isn't here, but Flea wouldn't have come here if she hadn't been here at some point." I gathered Mercy had done her thing on the angel and found out what she needed to know, without the old fashioned necessity of talking, perhaps with texting that would go totally out of fashion one day.

A 'truce' of a kind was instigated whilst another food intake occurred. Eating always seemed to be involved in most agreements to cease any kind of warfare. I had been at a few end of war celebrations myself, the one after the rebels ceased knocking seven shades of shit out of the Assyrians in Ninevah was particularly memorable, a lot of oxen got bar-b-cued that week.

After rummaging in a large freezer Mercy found Flea what looked like half a cow. She wolfed it down without the necessity of defrosting it, the sound of her cracking frozen ribs between her teeth, was vaguely reminiscent of a contract who thought running off to the Arctic would put a hell hound off the scent.

Castiel moved around Mercy as if she was something rare and expensive, like the Mona Lisa suddenly turning up in your living room. I couldn't resist sliding up to him at one point and asking what he made of Mercy, an angel's perspective on her might come in helpful.

"I think she is exceptionally dangerous and exceptionally mysterious. There is something about her that makes me feel that this journey of hers to find her mother and father may be per-ordained, there are things in this universe that are sometimes marked out as inevitable. Part of a bigger plan that even angels know nothing of." He looked at her playing with Flea across the room and looked back at me.

"My instinct is to kill you demon but you too may be part of this plan, she has need of you beyond this infernal contract. Crowley seems to have come to the same conclusion but in a different way."

"That little bit of hand holding showed you a lot then, I fucking threw up when I first touched her." I thought we might do a little bonding over Mercy's powers.

Castiel looked at me in that 'what do we have here on the bottom of my shoe' way. I knew when to back off, he may tolerate me around for now but I was not welcome.

"I need to look in the library, she would have read, she would have loved books." Mercy stated as if she had been consulting her own feelings.

"I'm afraid that I cannot give you access to the library it contains books and materials that have to remain only in the hands of those who know what power they contain."

Mercy closed her eyes and continued rubbing Flea's ear. It was like waking up after not remembering going to sleep in a place you don't recall. A bit like going on a drinking binge and I was familiar with that.

"Well we're here now so we might as well have a look round," Mercy stood up and started to move between the stacks of books. She seemed to have moved Flea and I with her to the library. I wondered if this transportation could work long distance and if so why the fuck had I just driven for 20 hours to get here when she could twitch her nose or whatever it is she does and get us between places. That would have saved us all so much energy and time and Mercy a lot of calories.

"Where's Castiel?" I asked, hoping her answer was in some dungeon.

"I'm not quite sure, I think it may be either Hawaii or maybe Australia I wasn't really concentrating."

"Right, so not the kitchen then." I sat down and decided I needed sleep and a stiff drink or five, not necessarily in that order.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter Eighteen**

Mercy stood in the library and slowly turned around taking in all the books on the stacks. Many looked old, really old, the sort of books that people ought to wear white gloves to touch. She began to run her finger along the rows, stopping now and then as if listening to them.

"So are we trying to home in on mommy dearest?" I commented, flopping down in an armchair in the corner.

"Sort of, I can feel a voice way back in my head saying something but it's like a mumble." Mercy replied not quite hearing the sarcasm in my voice.

"Shit girl, can you not hear your fucking self, whoever your mother was she left you on those hospital steps for a reason. Maybe she didn't feel up to bringing up a kid or just maybe you were safer not being with her. My gut tells me that its best sometimes to let sleeping dogs lie." I was a little uncomfortable at the way Flea was eyeing me, as if her half a cow dinner was simply an appetizer and I was the real main course.

Mercy looked at me as if I was talking in some strange foreign language.

"I can't leave it, you don't fucking get it, I'm not doing this because I'm curious or need to fill this hole in my life where my parents should be, it's like I have to … it's like if I don't something terrible will happen., not just to me but everyone."

Mercy's face was drained of colour as if whatever was happening to her was driving her beyond her physical reserves. I'd seen looks like that before, people who were desperate to outrun their crossroad contracts, who fought against the inevitable reaping of their soul. Many didn't mind dying but it wasn't until the very last minute that some suddenly realised what giving their soul to the devil really meant.

Mercy suddenly turned and pulled a small book from the stack , it didn't look that old, she rested her hand on it as if she could read it through touch alone. She opened it and began to flick through the pages. A dried flower slipped from between the pages and floated to the ground. She bent and picked it up and studied it.

"She was here, she left this here for me to find, to explain something."

"Like why she was in a Men of Letters library, using some old daisy as a bookmark maybe." I was beginning to get angry that this stupid girl should interpret everything as part of some sort of huge cosmic plan.

I was angry that she seemed to think all the powers she had shown were just clues to this puzzle she had to unlock. Maybe some teenagers liked to think they were important, that they were experiencing something no one had ever experienced before but the truth is so much easier than that we all just muddle through, I'd been muddling through for over three thousand years, just doing enough to get by. I'd seen what Mercy could do but somehow all that was not that important to her. She wasn't treating her powers as something to savor and enjoy even, if I was her at fifteen I would be having all sorts of fun stuff with them.

"Like what?" Mercy demanded in response to my thoughts.

"Oh you know, finding out all sorts of secrets people are thinking, a bit of blackmail maybe, a bit of pay back for a few things, general money making activities…nothing too burdensome or likely to create unwanted attention." I replied, brushing some dog hairs from my dress. The hound's hair seemed to get everywhere.

"That's how you've survived for so long isn't it, never draw attention to yourself, just keep your head down and look after number one."

"I'm not ashamed of that, the concept of being a coward is a very male thing don't you think? Running into a hail of bullets, being on the front line, making a stand…I've seen all that behavior thousands of times in thousands of different ways and you know what, those sorts of people simply end up dead for no good reason other than they didn't want to be thought of as a coward. I survive because I've learned bit by bit, dead body by dead body that being brave gets you nowhere. I saw brave men run into the teeth of the Assyrian Empire's greatest armies and be slaughtered, I've seen men clamber over the bodies of their friends to kill other men who are doing exactly the same thing and not one of them knows what they are really fighting for. So don't you fucking lecture me about keeping my head down, I kill people who have signed up to the deal , thousands die without ever knowing what the deal really is." I could feel myself getting angry with her, with the world, with every single deal I'd ever done.

"OK, I wasn't being critical, I was just saying…."

"Well you can fucking well stop just saying and get on with whatever it is you're doing." I opened my purse and rummaged around trying to find my mirror, I felt the need to examine the damage this situation was having on my face. The need for lipstick renewal is always paramount during any crisis, Shiree was definitely rubbing off on me.

Mercy picked up the dried flower that had drifted to the floor and held it in one hand whilst reading the pages from which it had fallen.

"Who the fuck is Ginsberg?" She asked looking up from the page.

"Some old Californian hippy type poet I think. He did a lot of drugs, well everyone did a lot of drugs back then. I used to go to parties when some people were high for days and then there was the LSD, that was nasty, people having hallucinations about giant cockroaches. I kinda' liked the fifties and sixties; Elvis, Kennedy, people building nuclear bunkers in their backyards, everyone either high, scared or paranoid and the Vietnam war men coming back with heads full of bad stuff. I nearly made a contract with a man once who just asked for ten years without the bad dreams the flashbacks …good times."

"You were going to make a deal with a soldier who had PTSD to just give him some peace of mind for ten years in exchange for his soul…that was low, really fucking low Yadi." Mercy looked at me as if I had crawled out from under a stone.

"I didn't make it, you have to be of sound mind, you know, be able to know what you are doing although I'm beginning to think I should have remembered that and backed out when you turned up."

"So this poem here is called A Supermarket in California written in Berkeley in 1955 so that's where we go next, she left me this as a clue."

She seemed serious, she was definitely losing the plot.

"So your little skill set includes time traveling back to the fifties then?"

"No, we go to Berkeley now not then, that would be fucking ridiculous."

"Well a few days ago I would have said imploding and exploding vampires, scaring Crowley, having a hellhound as a pet, sending a pretty powerful angel to Hawaii were all fucking ridiculous but here we are. I don't suppose you could just get us there by you twitching your nose or whatever it is you do."

"Why would I twitch my nose?" She seemed genuinely puzzled.

"You know like in Bewitched that old TV show," I could hear Shiree humming the theme tune in my head. Mercy shook her head, I suppose she was more the Kardashians and MTV generation.

"I think we should get a truck so Flea can ride with us, I don't like to think of sending her there on her own this time, something tells me this is going to be a dangerous."

"So you think confronting angels in a Men of Letters bunker isn't fucking dangerous?" I was losing patience not that I had much in the first place.

"Well we're here and it's fine so let's stick with the plan."

"Which is?"

"To do what I fucking well say until we find my parents."

She said it with a certain steel in her voice that I hadn't quite noticed before. Up to this point a sort of swagger had carried her through but ever since the vampire thing she had been growing more sure of herself, or rather more driven as if something was pulling her on.

"So no nose twitching just hundreds of miles with a hellhound slobbering down our necks because someone's bookmarked a poem by an old hippy written about a supermarket in Berkeley. Just another fucking day in weird central"

I got to my feet, pulled down my skirt and picked up my purse.

"Well I get to choose the truck, I refuse to look like some old hillbilly family."

Mercy walked over and suddenly gave me a hug which was really uncalled for and seemed to make Flea bounce around us which sent a lot of furniture flying.

"See you're beginning to see us as a little family Yadi; for a poor orphan, I'm fucking touched."


End file.
